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PLANCHETTE;

OR,

THE DESPAIR OF SCIENCE.

FULL ACCOUNT OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM, ITS PHENOMENA,
AND THE VARIOUS THEORIES REGARDING IT.

SURVEY OF FRENCH SPIRITISM.

I- . , .. > «

" \

* Search where thou wilt, and let thy reason go
To ransom Truth, even to the abyss below."

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1869.

"^f^^^Ry OF THE

APP
(X.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the yea^ x868, by

ROBERTS BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Dtstriet Court for the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDOB :
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AMD SON.

A PREFACE IN A LETTER.

To THE Rev. W. M. : —

lyyrY dear Friend, — More than twenty years
ago, we ventured to cross the border of what
Ennemoser calls the great ill-famed land of the
marvellous." Certain manifestations arrested our
notice. Repelled and, for a long time, baffled by
what seemed merely grotesque or trivial, we did not
abandon inquiry. Our interest in the proscribed
phenomena has not yet abated. We have lived to
see the smile of derision with which the spiritual
hypothesis that accompanied them was at first
saluted, grow fainter and fainter, until it now rarely
appears on the lips of well-informed persons y.- and
the question is put seriously, even by doctors of
divinity and veterans of science, "What do these
things mean?"

I cannot presume to answer dogmatically; but
having kept trace of the so-called spiritual move-
ment that began at Hydesville in 1847, and having,
long before that period, investigated the kindred
phemomena of somnambulism, independent and
mesmeric, I have hoped to offer such a survey of

PREFACE.

the facts and theories as would be acceptable to
earnest and uncommitted seekers after truth, always
excepting those who, like Mr. Herbert Spencer,
decline, " on d priori grounds," to look into the sub-
ject. Recently, attention has been directed to it
anew by the wooden trifle known as the Planchette ;
and I have chosen the name of this mysterious toy
as the tide of my book, rather as a convenient sign-
post, pointing to one little phase of the complex
whole, than as indicating fully the character of the
facts here collected ; for these are, I am persuaded,
of supreme importance, embracing, as they do, in
their relations, most of the authentic marvels in the
pneumatology of ancient and modern times.

Without undervaluing the tributary services of
Planchette in certain rare cases, I cannot doubt that
its eccentricities are often explicable by unconscious
nervous movement or by wanton deception. But,
after making allowance for all that is unprofitable,
trifling, and tedious in the experiments, — for all that
ought to be deducted as giving no conclusive evi-
dence of supersensual knowledge or power, — there
is a remainder of well-attested results, which cannot
be explained by any theory of imposture, halluci-
nation, or unexplored nervous action ; and these re-
sults belong to the class here considered.

I regret that the circumstances under which the
present work was written did not permit me to shape

PREFACE.

it in nearer accordance with my own notions of com-
pleteness and of the far-reaching significance of the
developments ; but this earth-life is so brief and un-
certain, that to have deferred my task, in order to
accomplish more, might have been to accomplish
nothing ; and when one has something to say, he
may leave it for ever unspoken if he is over-nice in
his choice of modes of presentation. May I not tell
the public that to your pen, my friend, they may
look for something more in keeping with the ampli-
tude of the theme ; something of which T may ven-
ture to announce, —

" *Tis not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripened fruit of sage delay ? "

In treating of the anti-supernaturalism of the
age, you remark, —

" Every now and then comes forth some one who says aloud,
after this manner : * I know it, and tilso every man living knows,
by his own eyes and ears, that there has nothing ever been
known of the spiritual world, not a word from it even, hot a
miracle. . . . That anybody knows, or ever has known, more
about it than anybody else, is nonsense. I am myself the stand-
ard by which you may measure Abraham, the patriarch ; and as
to his visions, they were merely dreams, such as I have myself.
I am the measure of the man Paul. And, you may believe me,
as to voice or light from heaven ever having come to him at the
time of his conversion, that it was not so. Simply, at that time,
he had an attack of vertigo, such as we all know something
about. Oh, this glorious clearing of the mind, by which now,
in my view, there is nothing higher anywhere than the level of
my own experience I Oh; what a comfort it is to have miracles

PREFACB.

shrink into common earthly things, and to know that nobody has
ever seen them, any more than I have 1 ' This would seem to be
odd comfort ; but there are persons whose needs it would seem
to meet."

You anticipate that the child bom this year will
see in his generation our men of science become
reverent believers in the supernatural of the Scrip-
tures. In the facts I here present, you will find
some reasons for this opinion; but you will also
learn that there are persons who admit the phe-
nomena, but denounce Spiritualism as a " nervous
epidemic, based on a gigantic assumption, and
propping an ancient superstition," namely, that of
individual spirits ! So, you see, there will be work
* still for the Spiritualists, even when the facts are
generally accepted, as they are likely to be within
the next quarter of a century.

For portions of this volume, I can claim no
other merit than that of a compilation. Some of it,
however, is compiled from past publications of my
own. For what I have adopted from others I have
endeavored to give credit, except where the purely
narrative form of the matter seemed not to require it,
or its source could not be traced.

Of late years, our public journalists have gener-
ally been not only tolerant, but liberal, toward in-
vestigators into the modern phenomena. In some
instances, however, holders of the spiritual hypo-
thesis have been met in a way which would be in-

PREFACB.

vii

suiting, if it were possible for a pedantic arrogance
to insult. To some of their speculations a learned
critic, whose audience is rather select than large,
replies with impertinent personal detraction, — his
ready relief when confronted by a non^ego that will
not fit into his pigeon-holes. Then, in all dissen-
tients, he sees at once a base congenital defect ; by
the easy and polite imputation of which, without the
foreign aid of argument, he would explain the au-
dacious phenomenon of a way of thinking, different
from his own.

Less amusing, but equally supercilious, is the re-
gard which a somewhat higher authority bestows on
the spirifual theory.

At this time, when the extreme materialism that
denies a soul and a future life lifts its head with so
assured an air, and assumes the tone of scientific
certainty, claiming the latest discoveries of physiol-
ogy and biology in its support, it is not for one who
accepts substantially the leading facts of this volume,
to be deterred by the ignorant misconceptions and
the de-haut-en-bas aflfectations of any would-be
dictators in the world of letters and philosophy,
from handing on to the next willing hand the torch
which may help to illumine the occult places of
truth. These enterprising critics aspire to put a
stop to the great phenomena of Spiritualism by
means of powerful leading articles and ingenious

viii

PREFACE.

feats of irony. A sneer at gravitation would have
about as much effect as their clever writing has had
in arresting progress.

Thanks to that Providence who ever proportions
our natural supply to our needs, physical and spirit-
ual, the means of opposing to the hypothesis of the
extreme materialist an array of positive facts are
now widely familiar; so much so indeed, that the
time for sarcasms and condescensions towards them
is past, except among the loiterers in the present
quick march of mind. An accumulation of facts,
supported by the most respectable contemporaneous
testimony, is presented in this book, such as no free,
sincere intelligence can dismiss with contumely or
flippant unconcern. To neutralize their force, or to
induce any person, who does his own thinking, to
be blind to their importance, it will require some-
thing more than a sprighdy critique or even a crush-
ing "editorial," — disgraceful as such insensibility
may seem to the able editor himself.

What are we to do with these facts? Criticism
has done its worst, and they are still irrepressible.
May we not hope that what is now the desfair
of Science may one day be its key to much that is
obscure in the duplex nature of man; its clew
to a complete rational assurance of his immortal
destiny?

£. S.

Bomw, Jmnnarj, 1869.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

What Science Says of It 1-28

Planchette, or the little plank— Its caprices — Its genealogy — Related to
the tipping tables — Science puzzled — Physical disturbances — The phe-
nomena irrepressible — Resistance to the facts — Cambridge and the me-
diums — The Professors nonplussed — Their solemn admonition — Herbert
Spencer— Faraday's test — Science on the high horse — Tyndall and
Home— Sir David Brewster — Professor Hare— Scientific re-action —
Dr. EUiotson — Mr. Wilkinson — Professor De Morgan — Testimony of
electricians — A supercilious philosopher — Humility of true science —
History repeating itself.

CHAPTER II.

The Phenomena of 1847 29-54

Rappings at Hydesville — The Fox femily— Glanvil and Wesley — Melanc-
thon — Luther — Meeting at Rochester — Letter of William Mountford —
Multiplication of mediums — Koon's rooms — Davenport Brothers —
Dr. Gray's letter — Dark circles — Loomis's testimony — Professor Mapes
— Captain Burton— The Davenports in Europe — French jugglers —
Messrs. Coleman and Cooper — The Stratford phenomena — H. Greeley
on Spiritualism — Senator Simmons — Dr. Campbell — Cui bono ?

CHAPTER III.
Manifestations through Miss Fox 55-79

Dr. Gray on the phenomena — Mr. L *8 remarkable experiences —

Kate Fox — Apparitions of Estelle and Dr. Franklin — Spurit flowers, cos-
tume, &c. — What the seers say — Identity of spirits — Spirit-writing —
Atmospheric effects — Dr. Gray's confirmatory evidence — * The spirit-
body.

CHAPTER IV. '

Manifestations through Mr. Home 80-ioa

Mediumship of Home — Mrs. Lyon — Lawsuit — Home's affidavit — Per-
sonal experiences — Thought-reading — Thackeray a Spiritualist — Robert

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Bell — Article in " Cornhill Magazine " — Stranger than fiction — Startling
phenomena— Spirit-music — Testimony of Dr. Gully and Mr. Varley—
The fire-test — Elongation of the person — Why are we not all mediums ?

CHAPTER V.

The Salem Phenomena, &c 104-122

Manifestations of 1692 and 1 868 — Salem witchcraft — Analogous fects —
Rev. C. W. Upham's book — Sir Wm. Blackstone — Mr. Lecky— Levi-
tation — How Mr. Upham explains things — The " Edinburgh Review " —
Frightened by an hypothesis— The Katies in good company — Medium-
ship of Charles H. Foster — Personal experiences — Proof of clairvoy-
ance — Dr. Ashbumer's narrative — Stigmata on the flesh — The Mu-
chehiey disturbances.

CHAPTER VI.
Various Mediums and Manifestations .... 123-140

Colchester — Mrs. Cushman — Miss Jennie Lord — Second letter of W. M.

— Personal experiences — Levitation and spirit-hands — The bass-viol
played on — Laura V. Ellis — Her imitators — Mr. Danskin's narrative—
The iron ring — Manifestations through Charles H. Read — Mr. Richard-
son's affidavit — Spirit-voices — Spirit-photographs — Mr. Mumler — Mr.
Guay — Professor Gunning — Blind Tom.

CHAPTER VII.
The Seeress of Prevorst—Kerner— Stilling . 141-152

Frederica Hauff6 and her biographer — Rappings no novelty — Familiar
phenomena — More fects in clairvoyance — Kindred &cts of science —
Kemer's " Leaves from Prevorst " — An accurate sketch of would-be critics

— Applicable to our own day — Refusing to look at fects before deciding
on them — " London Saturday Review " — Spirits of low degree — Stilling

— Professor Denton's testimony — Clairvoyance an established scientific
&ct — Time and space.

CHAPTER VIII.
* Somnambulism, Mesmerism, &c 153-200

Seers and clairvoyants— Personal mesmeric experience — Enlarged horizon
of Spiritualism — Dr. Carpenter — Lucid somnambulism — Materialists
worried — They deny clairvoyance — Their dogmatism — The belief in
immortality— Moleschott—Vogt — Feuerbach — BUchner — A. R. Wal-
lace — Vogt on the foetus— Conversion of Dr. Elliotson — Dr. Maudsley
ignores the fects— Dr. Geoiget's will — Mesmer — French Academy —

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Various mesmerists — Arago — Predictions iuliilled — The Stuttgard
prophecy — Remarkable instances of clairvoyance — Brittan — Zschokke
on the soul — Shelley — Dr. Bushnell — Captain Yount's dream — Andgit
oracles — Townshend on the spirit-body — Bacon — Bowles — H. G.
Atkinson — Not much of a shower — Dr. Elliotson again — The modem
phenomena known to Billot and Deleuze — Clairvoyance and Spiritualism
— Nature's guarantee of immortal life — Dr. Franck — Tyndall — J.
Martineau — Shorter.

CHAPTER IX.

MlSCEL]5.A3SfEOUS PHENOMENA . 20I-2I7

Apparitions — Lord Lyttleton — Dr. Donne — Captain Wheatcroft — Wynyard
— John Palmer, the actor — Hauntings— The Cock-Lane ghost— Beau-
mont — Surprising occurrences — Hahn's narrative — Stone - throwing
phenomena — Strange domgs — Narrative of Dr. Aschauer — Babinet
and Brownson — Shorter — T. StamjbqiMfi Spiritualism — Carlyle.

CHAl

Theories ^. • , 218-278

Early theories— Dr. E. C. Rogers — Mahan'J'ISray, President Samson— A
new force — Gasparin — Theory of hallucination — J. W. Jackson — Mr.
A Leighton — Remarks of "London Spiritual Magazine " -<t Spiritual
hypothesis — Value of scientific opinions — The iron collar — Double-goers

— Mr. Owen's narrative — B. Coleman — Apparitions of living persons —
Low character of communications — Fallible spirits — Daumer's theory

— Reichenbach on Spiritualism — Theory of Honestas — Of Dr. Ash-
bumer — Mr. Guppy*s " Mary Jane " theory — Odic theories reviewed by
Howitt — Rev. C. Beecher on the no-spirit theory — Rehn on the Cor-
relation of Forces— Wake's psychology — Darwin's hypothesis — Re-
marks of " London Star " — Character of vouchers — Various solutions —
The first question.

CHAPTER XI.

Common Objections — Teachings 279-325

The change wrought by death — Jobard on the vulgar notion — Tendency of
fiicts — Causes of opposition — Natural repugnance — Higher manifesta-
tions — Spintualism defined — Absence of dogmatib teaching — Wollaston

— Jamieson— Judge Carter — Report of Cleveland Committee — Dark
circles — Dr. Wilkinson — Mr. Shorter — Frivolous objections — Answer
to " New York Nation " — Pythonism — Antiquity of Spiritualism — Con-
tradictions — Dr. W. B. Potter — Mr. A. E. Newton's reply — Lord Lytton
—What is matter — Honestas — Plutarch — Julian the Apostate — General
agreement — Punishment remedial — Statement from " Pall Mall Gazette "

xii

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

— Spirftualism leaderless — Rochester resolutions — Discipline of evil—
Discourse of a medium — S. J. Finney — Shorter — What is relipon

— Kardec — A. J. Davis — Bianca Mojon — The Catholic Church—
Hecker — " Dublin Review " — Diabolical agency — Swedenboigians and
Spiritualists — Wm. White — Claims to infallibility — Delachambre —
Lessing — Object of earthly discipline.

CHAPTER XII.
Spiritism, Pre-existence, &c 326-373

No recognition of leaders — Latour on the phenomena — Allan Kardec —
Spiritism — Its doctrines — Re - incarnation — Rev. Edward Beecher*8
"Conflict of Ages" — Origin of evil — J. S. Mill on the Calvinist doc-
trine — Whittier — A prevalent idea — Kardec on the spirit-body — Henry
More on pre-existence — Advocates of it — Apparition of Ficinus — Quo-
tations from Herder, Lessine^^x^ — Tijinsmigration — Herodotus —
Plato's conception — ^^M0^^^S9^ Rothery — Cudworth — Scho-
penhauer — Irenaeus — JiPW* JBBfi|i#" Swedenborg — A. J. Davis —
Cahagnet — E. Beecher. ^,||jinilt^pTerre et Ciel " — The Theological
hell — Pierre Leroux on ntaMH — Advocates of transmigra-

tion — Instinctive aspiratiOT!i*^Charles Bonnet — Matter and spirit —
Hostile camps of science 7— Christian Garve — An American Platonist —
The poets.

CHAPTER XIII.

PSYCHOMETRY 374-389

Modem science in harmony with Spiritualism — Schroeder van der Kolk —
^ Memory imperishable — Marvels of memory — Coleridge — Sir William
Hamilton — Dupotet — Sensitives — Experiences of Zschokke — Of Des-
champs — Of Goethe and Lavater— Of Forceythe Willson— Reichen-
bach's experiments — Professor Denton's " Soul of Things " — Dr. Ber-
trand on the soul — A knowledge of psychometry an incentive to a high
morality.

CHAPTER XIV.
Cognate Facts and Phenomena 390-400

Spiritualism of the Bible — Ai;g:ustine on miracles — Testimony of Evodius,
a bishop of the early church — The scholastic ages — Catholic miracles —
Testimony of St. Theresa — Reply to Renan by Mountford — Guardian
angels — Speaking in unknolm tongues — Oriental phenomena — Plan-
chette in China — Phenomena among the Druses — The North- American
Indians — Why must there be mediums — Davis on mediumship — S. J.
Finney on spirit and matter — Seneca — Death and its sequel — Sudden
disappearance of the belief in witchcraft — Concluding remarks.

PLANCHETTE.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT SCIENCE SAYS OF IT.
" Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?"— ych$t,

'T^HE future historian of the nmrveUous cannot well avoid
some mention of the planchette oe ** little plank." For his
benefit, we will remark that the year 1868 witnessed the appear-
ance of the planchette, in great numbers, in the booksellers'
shops of the United States.

Why so sudden a demand for it should have sprung up, no-
body could explain. Planchette was nothing new. For twelve
or fifteen years it had been common in France, where it received
its name. It was simply an improvement on some ruder instru-
ment that had been in use among the original American inves-
tigators, of the year 1848, into the rapping and table- tipping
phenomena.

The planchette is a little heart-shaped table with three legs,
one of which is a pointed lead-pencil, that can be slipped in and
out of a socket, and by means of which marks can be made on
paper. The other two legs have (^fl^L attached, which can be
easily moved in any direction. T^^^Bof this table is usually
about seven inches long and five wi^^^^t the apex of the heart
is the socket, lined with rubber, through which the pencil is
thrust.

Not improbably, some future antiquarian will discover that
this mystic toy was in use long before the days of Pythagoras.

PLANCHETTE.

The phenomenon of the tipping tables was known twenty cen-
turies ago.

The form of the planchette is of little consequence, and may
be regulated by the caprice of the manufacturer. The instru-
ment is made light, so that the slightest application of force will
move it. As for the insulated casters and other "patent" con-
trivances, they are of no account, except to give novelty to an
advertisement.

When the modern rapping phenomena began to be investi-
gated, communications were received by the tedious process of
calling over the alphabet, and noting down the letters at which
the rap was given. Then, when the movements of tables took
place, it was suggested that by arranging a pencil at the foot of
a light table, and placing a sheet of paper under it, the intelli-
gent force that was operating might produce written sentences.

The device was tried, and found successful. The table, once
set in motion by the passive influence of a medium, began
to trace characters, then words and sentences. This method
was finally simplified by substituting little tables, the size of a
hand ; then small baskets, pasteboard boxes, and finally the flat
piece of wood, running on little wheels, and called Planchette.

Here we have the genealogy of the planchette. It is, you
see, the direct oiOfspring of the tipping table. The phenomena
in which it is made instrumental are, for the most part, the
same.

And now, what will Planchette do?

Place it on the smooth wood of a table, and let one person, or
two or more, of a particular organizatioih rest the fingers on it
lightly, and it will soon begin to move ; and this without any
conscious intent or acti^^^^e part of any individual present,
as there is reason to be^^^V

Then, by placing a sn^^^f white paper under the pencil, it
will be found that intelligible sentences wiH be written out by
these movements.

There would be nothing curious in all tl is, were it not for the
character of these sentences in many instances. Expressions

ITS CAPRICES.

wholly foreign to the mental habits of the operators will be found
on the paper. Thus, the pious will be made to write profanely ;
and the profane will be suddenly made instrumental in the pro-
duction of messages which might do credit to Madame Guyon
or to Vincent de Paul. But the results are as various as the
idiosyncrasies of individuals.

Frequently, answers to mental questions will be given with a
directness that leaves no doubt as to the intelligence of the oper-
ating force.

For example : the other day an affectionate father put a men-
tal inquiry, to which the instantaneous reply, under the hands
of a child, was "A husband." The question had been, "What
does Miss Susan want?" The inquirer then asked what sum
he had paid for repairing a certain garment, and the answer was
correctly given, "Three dollars and seventy-five cents."

What wonder that the planchette should be getting to be a
puzzle and a study to thousands of intelligent inquirers, for
whom the great problems of psychology and physiology have a
not irrational interest?

It must not be supposed that the " little plank" will be equally
communicative under the fingers of all. In the majority of cases
it obstinately refuses to move. The failures are very numerous.
Probably not more than ten out of a hundred persons in a mixed
assemblage would be found, through whom the phenomena
• would take place ; and in these hundred there might possibly be
one who would prove a good medium. Such a one will soon
discard the planchette as of no use, in the production of phe-
nomena far more extraordinary than any got by its aid.

The editor of the "Boston Journal of Chemistry," Dr. James
R. Nichols, with a candor somewhat rare among men of science,
remarks (September, 1868), of the phenomena of Planchette and
the tipping tables : " The position assumed by a majority of
scientific men towards this class of phenomena is that of entire
disbelief. They do not separate the physical disturbances, the
outward show of force by unseen agencies, from the spiritual
interpretation mixed up with, or inseparably connected, as tha^

PLANCHETTE.

suppose, with the phenomena. The whole matter is regarded
as a sham and a delusion, unworthy of thought or investiga-
tion.

**A considerable number, however, have reached a different
conclusion. They only direct attention to a single point, and
first clear away all the rubbish with which it is incumbered.
The great question is, Whether these alleged physical disturbances
actually occur or not, independent of direct and palpable human
agency. Is it mischief, or is it not? Is it delusion, or is it not?
These questions they have settled in their own minds ; and the
conclusion is, that the phenomena are undeniably real,

" Not a step further will they go; beyond this all is misty and
dark. Many occupy this position who hesitate to admit it, as
there is in scientific circles a peculiar sensitiveness upon the subject;
and odium and disgrace are liable to rest on any one, no matter
how high his position may be, who cherishes a belief even in
the reality of the physical disturbances. We incline to think
the popularity of Planchette may serve to break a link in the
chain of prejudice that binds fast honest convictions, and permit
a little more freedom in thought and investigation."

If the ** little plank" shall accomplish as much as this, it will
not have been wholly unproductive of good ; but science must put
off its dictatorial attitude, and take facts as they present them-
selves, before it can hope to make any progress in the path of
interpretation and induction. The writer adds : —

** We are asked to explain Planchette. To do this would be
to explain a most remarkable and extensive class of physical
phenomena, beginning with the antics of the little heart-shaped
table, and running up through parlor table-tippings, rappings,
writing, &c., to the more astounding physical disturbances,
noises, and hub-bub, witnessed in so many dwellings in this
country and in Europe. There are probably a dozen or more
families disturbed in this mysterious manner in the United States
at the present moment; but every effort is made at concealment,
as but few people of respectability feel that they can bear up
under the public odium attached to such proceedings.

SCIENCE PUZZLED.

** We once, for several hours, listened to the recital of what
occurred in the dwelling of Rev. Dr. Phelps, of Stratford, Conn.,
from the lips of the venerable man himself. We were reduced
to the alternative, from listening to his statement, of regarding
him, his family, and a wide circle of intelligent friends, as the
most egregiously duped, deluded, cheated circle of men and
women, the greatest liars and impostors, that ever lived, or of
believing in the reality of phenomena, which human reason and
human science were incompetent to explain. We felt compelled
to adopt the latter alternative.

"Thousands, from the strange and unusual character of the
phenomena, have been driven to a belief in their supernatural
origin, and the unfortunate delusidn has spread throughout the
civilized world. We incline to think exaggerated views are
entertained respecting the competency of scientific men to shed
light upon the subject. The key to the mystery must be found
before any reliable solution is reached. We will not weary the
reader with details of what the writer has seen. Suffice it to say,
that enough has been observed to lead to the conclusion, that
there is one foiver^ impulse, or force, in nature, regarding the
character of which, mankind are totally in the dark,

" It has proved, so far as our experiments extend, a most
difficult and baffling subject to investigate. The nature of this
difficulty is illustrated in Planchette. Why cannot one person
cause it to move as well as another? Why does it sometimes
utterly and ignominiously fail when those are present who have
the strongest desire to witness its movements, and when those
who are supposed to influence its movements share in this desire.'
The attempt, or design, to carefully and methodically investi-
gate and study the phenomenon appears to arrest it. In some
families, a lady, or a child even, stands in such relations to the
instrument as to cause it *to move by passing it at a consider-
able distance. It seems full of impatience to work when such
persons are in the house; and it will write, leap, and run about
as if impelled by an irresistible impulse. It has occurred, when
such a family has invited one or more ladies or gentlemen to an

PLANCHETTE.

investigffction of its performances, and they have come, that the
results have been frivolous and unsatisfactory. A calm, philo-
sophical, careful man is not likely to become convinced of the
reality of this class of phenomena from such exhibitions.

"Several years ago we invited a friend — a highly distin-
guished professor in one of our largest Universities — to visit a
house where certain extraordinary physical disturbances were
alleged to be taking place, apparently in connection with a girl
about twelve years of age belonging to the family. In this in-
stance, the power was uncommonly demonstrative, the force
being brought to bear upon several articles of furniture, but
more particularly upon a parlor-table, which danced and tumbled
about the room, entirely regiirdless of the professor's cool in-
vestigations and ingenious tests to * discover the trick.* This
he entirely failed to accomplish. There were no conducting
wires, springs, pulleys, or levers to be found ; and the little girl
and family were manifestly as ignorant of what produced the
phenomena as ourselves. A large number of theories were pro-
pounded and discussed, not one of which was in the least satis-
factory; and the whole affair remains a mystery.

"In explanation, we hear it often stated that it is due to
animal magnetism. Of course, such declarations must come
from the unlearned or unscientific, as science recognizes no
such force or principle in nature as animal magnetism. Some
kinds of fishes possess electrical power^ and can impart shocks ;
but then they carry about with them a little arrangement of
cells or batteries, which is the source of the electrical force.
Human beings are not supposed to possess any such endow-
ment. It is very convenient to have a term to apply in explana-
tion of the phenomena among the crowd, although it may be
entirely unmeaning and empirical. Electricity offers no expla-
nation; neither does magnetism, as at present understood.
Chemical laws and principles are appealed to in vain for a
solution ; and as regards * odic force,' we have not the slightest
knowledge of what that is.

" In conclusion, we venture the opinion, that if the phenomena

THE PHENOMENA IRREPRESSIBLE.

are ever explained, they will be found to be due to a blending
of the psychological and physical endowments of the human ^
organization, acting under certain laws entirely dissimilar to
any now known or understood. Who will produce the key that
will unlock the mystery ? "

Such are the conclusions of an educated chemist in regard to
these phenomena which have been attracting so large a share
of public attention for the last twenty years. Instead of being
"put down" and "exploded," as we have been repeatedly told,
they are now extorting from men of science a reluctant recogni-
tion, after years of bitter hostility and denunciation on their
part, to which, however, there have been conspicuous excep-
tions.

Perhaps Dr. Nichols is a little hasty in pronouncing the
spiritual hypothesis "an unfortunate delusion." This, to say
the least, is as yet an open question. But it is something gained
to have the phenomena admitted. We may honestly diiOfer as
to their cause. Having agreed upon the facts, — whatever oUr
theory as to the origin may be, whether we decide in favor of
some unknown force not spiritual, or conclude, for want of a
better term, that the force is spiritual, — let us not stigmatize
those who diiSer from us on this point, as under " an unfortunate
delusion."

The " Scientific American," the principal scientific journal of
the United States, has had its attention attracted by Planchette
to these despised phenomena ; and, in one of its issues, of July,
1868, manfully makes the admission, that " a peculiar :Cla8s of
phenomena have manifested themselves within the last quarter
of a century, which seem to indicate that the human body may
become the medium for the transmission of force to inert and
dead matter, either, in obedience to the will of others, or by the
action of the nervous power upon the muscular system, in such
a way that those through whom or from whom it emanates are
totally unconscious of any exercise of volition, or of any mus-
cular movement, as acts of their own wills."

The only expression here that we would modify, is in the

PLANCHETTE.

remark that these phenomena have manifested themselves with-
in " the last quarter of a century." The annals of the race are
full of them, back to the first dawn of authentic history. They
have been interrogated and examined in a different spirit dur-
ing the last quarter of a century ; and that is the only respect in
which they can be said^to differ essentially from many of the
phenomena of witchcraft, necromancy, somnambulism, mes-
merism, &c., so long known and disputed.

The same journal remarks, "The spirit with which scientific
men have looked upon these phenomena has been unfortu-
nately such as has retarded their solution. Skepticism as to
their reality, although they were corroborated by evidence that
would be convincing upon any other subject ; refusal to inves-
tigate, except upon their own conditions ; and ridicule not only
of the phenomena themselves, but of those who believe in them, —
have marked the course of scientific men ever since these mani-
festations have laid claim to public credence. Such a spirit
savors of bigotry. The phenomena of table-tipping, spirit-
rapping so called, and the various manifestations which manji>
have claimed to be the efiect of other wills acting upon and
through the medium of their persons, are exerting an immense
influence, good or bad, throughout the civilized world. They
should, therefore, be candidly examined ; and if they are purely
physical phenomena, as has been claimed, they should be re-
ferred to their true cause."

Dr. J. Ray, well known in the United States for his works on
Medical Jurisprudence, contributes to the ** American Journal of
Insanity," of October, 1867, a paper, in which he admits that many
of the facts of Spiritualism " are susceptible of proof, and are
attested by evidence that places them beyond a reasonable
doubt." "They indicate," he says, "the existence of agencies,
certainly, that have not yet been admitted into the philosophy
of the schools. It is to be regretted, that the present tendency
is to ignore them entirely, rather than to make them a subject
of scientific investigation. It is surprising that physicians,
especially, with such well-recognized affections before them as

RESISTANCE TO THE FACTS.

catale\>sy, somnambulism, ecstasies, and double consciousness,
should jump to the conclusion that all the facts of Spiritualism
and animal magnetism are utterly anomalous and impossible."

The first elaborate attempt to give a bad name to these phe-
nomena was the " knee-joint theory " of Drs. Lee and Flint, in
1849. It was declared that the raps were made by a slipping of
the knee-joint, and a pamphlet was published to prove it. In-
numerable were the denunciations from scientific quarters, that
then followed the contemned phenomena. The testimony of
thousands of competent witnesses was set aside as worthless.
They did not know "how to observe." They had not had the
advantage of a "thorough scientific training;" and they could
not use their eyes and ears and other senses in a manner to
afford any guaranty whatever that they were not under an hallu-
cination.

Such was the language of the late Professor Felton, of Har-
vard College ; and in England, of the celebrated Faraday and of
Sir David Brewster.

Every now and then paragraphs would appear in the news-
papers, headed "The humbug exploded at last," "Spiritualism
exposed," &c. And then we would be told that some " medium"
had turned State's evidence, and had revealed how the " tricks**
were accomplished. There have been many such mediums,
who, having failed to attract attention by genuine phenomena,
have hoped to reach the public ear and the public purse by
undertaking to disclose how the manifestations were brought
about. But, like Balaam, they could not curse whom God would
not curse.

All such attempts on the part of deserters have resulted in lit-
tle that was satisfactory ; although they have had a good effect in
making investigators more wary, by showing that some of the
phenomena of the dark circles, especially the rope-tying experi-
ments, may be adroitly simulated.

In the year 1857, ^ reward having been offered by the publish-
ers of the "Boston Courier" for the production of certain phe-
nomena, a well-known investigator, Dr. H. F. Gardner, of

PLANCHETTB.

Boston, undertook to exhibit them before a committee of pro-
fessors of Harvard University, composed of Benjamin Peirce,
Louis Agassiz, B. A. Gould, and E. N. Horsford, all of them
gentlemen of the highest scientific distinction.

The result of the rash experiment may be read in the follow-
ing report, made by this committee, and dated Cambridge,
Mass., June 29, 1857 • —

"The Committee award that Dr. Gardner having failed to
produce before them an agent or medium who * communicated a
word imparted to the spirits in an adjoining room,' * who read
a word in English written inside a book or folded sheet of
paper,* * who answered any question * which the superior intel-
ligence must be able to answer,' who * tilted a piano without
touching it, or caused a chair to move a foot,' and having failed
to exhibit to the committee any phenomenon which, under the
widest latitude of interpretation, could be regarded as equivalent
to either of these proposed tests, or any phenomenon which
required for its production, or in any manner indicated a force
which could technically be denominated spiritual, or which was
hitherto unknown to science, or a phenomenon of which the
cause was not palpable to the committee, is, therefore, not enti-
tled to claim from the * Boston Courier ' the proposed premium
of five hundred dollars.

" It is the opinion of the committee, derived from observa-
tion, that any connection with spiritualistic circles, so called,
corrupts the morals and degrades the intellect. They therefore
deem it their solemn duty to warn the community against this
contaminating influence, which surely tends to lessen the truth
of man and the purity of woman.

* That there has been some progress since the Cambridge professors set down this
phenomenon of seeing through opaque substances as one of their impossibilities, may
be seen from the " Edinburgh Review " (July, 1868), where that highly conservative
authority admits the fact, as follows: "Sleep-walkers have been known, who could
not only walk, ^nd perform all ordinary acts in the dark as well as in the light, but who
went on writing or reading without interruption, though an opaque substance — a book
or a slate — was interposed, and would dot the Cs and cross the fs with unconscious
correctness, without any use of their eyes."

CAMBRIDGE UTTERS HER PROTEST.

"The committee will publish a report of their proceedings,
together with the results of additional investigations and other
* evidence, independent of the special case submitted to them, but
bearing upon the subject of this stupendous delusion."

The promised report has not jet (i868) seen the light.

The solemn admonitions of the Cambridge professors against
the " stupendous delusion " seem to have been of little effect in
repressing inquiry or checking belief in the manifestations ; inas-
much as Spiritualists who could then be reckoned by thousands
must now be estimated at millions.

Dr. Gardner, on his side, reported that the four learned gen-
tlemen insisted upon prescribing conditions that were fatal to the
^ production of the subtle and evasive phenomena, obtained, inde-
pendently of the will, from various mediums.

On this occasion, the mediums were Miss Kate Fox, Mrs. Brown
(of the Fox family), Mr. J. V. Mansfield, Mr. Kendrick, the
Davenport Brothers, and Dr. G. A. Redman, since deceased.

Raps were produced, but the committee were not satisfied that
this now common manifestation, which no intelligent person
questions, was not some mech^ical trick.

At the first sitting, Mr. Agassiz and others refused to sit at the
table. The committee had agreed to make the conditions har-
monious, as far as they could. Here, at the outset, was a devia-
tion which discomposed the mediums. Mr. Redman, in his
" Mystic Hours," states, that, on being importuned to join the
circle, Mr. Agassiz averred that he had sworn never to sit in a
circle, and meant to adhere to his oath.

Redman significantly asks, "For what was he present? Re-
ceiving no manifestations of any consequence. Dr. Gardner and
myself retired to an ante-room to inquire of the operating
intelligence what next should be done? Scarcely were we
seated at the table, when it moved violently ; and a communica-
tion was written, from right to left, to the purport, that unless
all present were willing to receive, and shaped their actions
accordingly, nothing could be done. We announced the sub-
stance of the message to the party. Mr. Agassiz desired to ace

PLANCHETTE.

the manuscript: it was shown to him; when, without hesita-
tion, he declared / had written it, and * that it was sheer
humbug.* ... ^

" I now politely invited Mr. Agassiz to join me in the ante-
room, and we would try alone ; that no doubt he would be more
successful. * Sit with said Mr. A., *No! *I have resolved

to sit with no one. I made up my mind before coming here,
that nothing would come of it; and I am only the more con-
vinced it is all deception.* I could say no more."

The experiments with the Brothers Davenport were reserved
for the last. The following is the account given by Dr. T. L.
Nichols, their English biographer (1865) : —

" At the beginning, they were submitted to a cross-examina-
tion. The professors exercised their ingenuity in proposing
tests. * Would they submit to be handcuffed ? * — * Yes.* — * Would
they allow men to hold them ? * — * Yes.' A dozen propositions
were made, accepted, and then rejected by those who made them.
If any test was accepted by the brothers, that was reason enough
for not trying it. They were supposed to be prepared for that,
so some other must be found. It was of no use to put them to
any test to which they were ready and apparently eager to
submit.

" At last the ingenious professors fell back upon rope, — their
own rope and plenty of it. They brought five hundred feet of
new rope, selected for the purpose. They bored the cabinet, set
up in one of their own rooms, Ad to which they had free
access, full of holes. They tied the two boys in the most
thorough and the most brutal manner. They have, as any one
may see, or feel, small wrists, and hands large in proportion, —
good, solid hands, which cannot be slipped through a ligature
which fits even loosely on the wrists. When they were tied
hand and foot, arms, legs, and in every way, and with every kind
of complicated knotting, the ropes were drawn through the holes
boi^d in the cabinet, and firmly knotted outside so as to make a
network over the boys. After all, the knots were tied with linen
thread.

THE PROFESSORS NONPLUSSED.

"Professor Peirce then took his place in the cabinet between
the two brothers, who could scarcely breathe, so tightly were
they secured. As he entered, Professor Agassiz was seen to put
something in his hand. The side doors were closed and fastened.
The centre door was no sooner shut than the bolt was shot on
them inside, and Professor Peirce stretched out both hands to
see which of the two firmly bound boys had done it. The phan-
tom hand was shown, the instruments were rattled : the profes-
sor felt them about his head and face, and at every movement
kept pawing on each side with his hands, to find the boys both
bound as firm as ever. Then the mysterious present of Pro-
fessor Agassiz became apparent. The professor ignited some
phosphorus by rubbing it between his hands, and half-suffocated
himself and the boys with its fumes in trying to see the trick or
the confederate.

"At last, both boys were untied from all the complicated
fastenings without and within the cabinet ; and the ropes were
found twisted around the neck of the watchful Professor Peirce I
Well, and what came of it all? Did the professors of Harvard
tell what they had seen? Not in the least. To this day they
have made no report whatever of the result of their investiga-
tion, and are probably, to this day, denouncing it all as humbug,
imposture, delusion, &c. What can a man of science do with al
fact he cannot account for, except deny it? It is the simplest J
way of overcoming a difficulty, and avoiding the confession that
there is something in the world which he does not understand.
Of all men. in the world, men of science, and especially scien- |
tific professors, are the last to acknowledge that * there are more I
things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in their phi- '
losophy.' "

Thus ended the famous investigation into the phenomena by
the Cambridge professors. As appropriate to the subject, we
quote the following remarks from a letter by the late Dr. William
Gregory, of Edinburgh, a well-known writer an^ physician : —

"The rational inquirer will soon find that there arc innumera-
ble causes of failnre,— tuch as the state of health of the sub-

PLANCHETTE.

ject; the state of the weather; the state of body or mind of the
experimenter; and last, not least, the influence of the bystand-
ers, above all if they be skeptical, prejudiced, or excited by con-
troversy. Whether in magnetism, in clairvoyance, or spiritual
manifestations, we who have experimented know these things ;
but the scientific committees never do, and hence they most
unreasonably expect, and indeed some observers as unreasona-
bly promise, uniform success, as the test of truth.

" Fbr many years past I have never accepted any such chal-
lenge or test; nor have I made any attempt to convince, in this
way, men who are capable of expressing decided opinions pre-
vious to their having examined the subject. All that I ever
consent to do is to make the trial, on the express understanding
that failure proves nothing as to the disputed truth. And even
then I reject all dictation as to conditions, as I will only experi-
ment under the conditions presented by Nature, to whom the
skeptics have no right to dictate. Our duty is to study Nature as
she presents herself, and to take the facts as we find them. We
may alter the conditions if we please ; but we have no right
to insist that the facts shall be produced under such altered
conditions as the uneducated judgment may dictate or fancy
suggest."

In England the savans have been quite as intractable as their
' American brethren. Mr. Herbert Spencer settles the question
on a priori grounds, as glibly as if Bacon had not long since
shown the ^absurdity of a priori objections to attested facts.
Professor W. D. Gunning, of Boston, who lately (1868) had an
interview with Mr. Spencer, writes : "In the course of the con-
versation, he referred to a great naturalist. *Mr. Spencer,* said
I, *do you know that Mr. — has become a Spiritualist?'
* Yes,' he said, * and I am greatly surprised.' * Did you ever
look at the phenomena?' *No,' he said, *I never did. I have
settled this question in my own mind on a priori grounds '1
Now, Herbert Spencer, for whose power as a thinker no one has a
higher respect than myself, is writing a great work on psy-
chology; and he settles these questions of odyle, trance, and of

Faraday's test.

obsession — involving the very nature of the soul and its pow-
ers — on a priori grounds. The savans had settled the impossi-
bility of meteoric stones a priori. But things settled in that
way won't stay settled."

Everybody has heard of the philosopher who refused to look
through a microscope, on being told it would unsettle a favorite
theory.

In England, the late Professor Faraday committed himself, at
an early period, against the possibility of the " spiritual phe-
nomena. His declaration that, *' before we proceed to consider
any question involving physical principles, we should set out
with clear ideas of the naturally possible and impossible," was
severely handled by Professor A. De Morgan, the distinguished
mathematician.

The whole assumption on which Faraday based his objection
to facts of supposed spiritual agency was a misconception.
Neither in table-moving nor any other of these phenomena is
the creation of force implied, as he imagined, but simply the
employment of existing forces by invisible intelligences ; a view
which, whether it be true or false, is at least not manifestly im-
possible.

The only practical suggestion on this subject by Faraday was
the emplojrment of an instrument to test whether the alleged
table-movements were, or were not, caused by the muscular
pressure of the sitters around it; but, apart from other consid-
erations, this suggestion was at once disposed of by the fact
that these movements frequently occurred without the slightest
contact with the table.

In 1865, Faraday wrote, "They who say they see these things
are not competent witnesses of facts."

The facts which Faraday had so unhesitatingly pronounced to
proceed from involuntary muscular action^ and from no other
cause, had become so unruly, that, after some fruitless attempts
to right himself, he gave up the subject in disgust.

At length, however, the numerous and circumstantial descrip-
tions given by men of high note, and dinned into his ears, had

PLANCHETTE.

their effect; and he signified his desire to see for himself. A
meeting was accordingly arranged for him by Sir Emerson
Tennant, at which Mr. Home, the medium, was to be present.
iBut, lol the day before the sitting was to have been held, Fara-
day demanded a programme of what was to take place !

In a letter dated June 14, 1861, he says, "It would be a con^
descension on my part to pay any more attention to them [the
occult phenomena] now." He asks, "Does Mr. Home wish me
to go? Is he willing to investigate as a philosopher, and, as
such, to have no concealments, no darkness ? . . . Does he make
himself responsible for the effects, and identify himself more or
less with their cause? Would he be glad if their delusive charac-
ter were established and exposed ; and would he gladly help to
expose it, or would he be annoyed and personally offended?
Does he consider the effects natural or supernatural ? If natural,
what are the laws which govern them ? or does he think they
are not subject to laws ? If supernatural, does he suppose them
to be miracles or the work of spirits? If the work of spirits,
would an insult to the spirits be .considered as an insult to him-
self f If the effects are miracles, or the work of spirits, does he
admit the utterly contemptible character, both of t|iem and their
results, up to the present time, in respect either of yielding
information or instruction, or supplying any force or action of
the least value to mankind?"

Such was the spirit in which the great scientist approached
the subject. And Mr. John Tyndall, the eulogist of Faraday,
and hardly his inferior as a man of science, makes the follow-
Jng announcement, under date of May 8, 1868 : " I hold myself in
readiness to witness and investigate, in the spirit of the forego-
ing letter, such phenomena as Mr. Home may wish to reveal to
me during the month of June."

Mr. Tyndall, echoing Faraday, calls upon Mr. Home, as pre-
liminary to the ** condescension " of an investigation by Mr.
Tyndall, to " admit the utterly contemptible character of the
manifestations and their results"!

In his reply to Mr. Tyndall, Mr. Homq writes, ** I would ask

SCIENCE ON THE HIGH HORSE.

if this is the tone of a humble student and inquirer, prepared to
analyze and ascertain facts, or whether it be not the sign of a
mind far gone in prejudging the question at issue ?. . . . When
these matters first engaged public attention, Professor Faraday
had, unfortunately, publicly decided they were due to involun-
tary muscular action ; and, as time went on,* every development
of them which proved the incorrectness of his explanation was
received almost as a personal affront 1>y him. . . . Mr. Tyndall
says he is ready to witness and investigate in the spirit of Mr.
Faraday's letter. From the attitude he takes up, I fully believe
it ; and as such spirit is not that of logic, nor according to the
true scientific method, I will wait until he can approach the sub-
ject in a more humble frame of mind."

Mr. Tyndall having introduced into his correspondence the
name of Mr. W. M. Wilkinson, that gentleman addressed a letter
to the " Pall Mall Gazette," of London, in which, referring to
Mr. TyndalFs proposition to retain Faraday's preliminary te^ts,
he says, if conditions are to be the order of the day, he would
like answers from Mr. Tyndall on certain preliminaries: —

" If he insist on having an answer to the question whether
what he is about to investigate *can be of any use or value to
mankind,' I shall require him to answer whether the cut bono has
been introduced into science as a bar to inquiry and^ if so, when /
The history of science is full of instances in which centuries have
elapsed between the observation of phenomena and their appli-
cation to useful purposes. More than a thousand years the
world had to wait before the known qualities of conic sections
were applied in carpentry ; and it was many years before the first
experimentp in electricity jcnded in the electric telegraph."

When the Davenport Brothers visited England in 1864, yet
another opportunity was offered Professor Faraday to set him-
self right on the great question. Twenty-four gentlemen met at
the house of Mr. Dion Boucicault, and, after a most searching
and thorough investigation of the manifestations, unanimously
agreed, that they " could arrive at no other conclusion than that
there was no trace of trickery in any form, and certainly there

PLANCHETTE.

were neither confederates nor machinery; and that, so far as
their investigations enabled them to form an opinion, the phe-
nomena which had taken place in their presence were not the
product of legerdemain."

Professor Faraday was one of those invited ; and, on this oc-
casion, he might have had, what on the former occasion he had
thought so necessary, a programme; inasmuch as with the
Davenports the same general order of phenomena, and in the
same sequence, usually take place. This time, however, the de-
mand was not repeated ; but, while acknowledging the courteous
invitation of the Brothers, he expressed himself " disappointed "
with the "manifestations," and therefore left them "in the
hands of the professors of legerdemain."

" If," he wrote, " spirit communications, not utterly worth-
less, should happen to start into activity, I will trust the spirits
to find out for themselves how they can move my attention^ I am
tired of themJ**

It is barely possible that the spirits did not regard it as a mat-
ter of supreme importance to find out how they might move Mr.
Faraday's attention.

Among the gentlemen present at the meeting which Faraday
declined to attend, and all of whom testified to the good faith
with which the experiments were conducted, were Lord Bury ;
Sir Charles Nicholson; Sir John Gardiner; Rev. E. H. Newen-
ham ; Charles Reade, author of " Foul glay," &c. ; Rev. W. Ellis ;
Captain Inglefield, the Arctic explorer ; Robert Bell, the author ;
Robert Chambers, publisher and author; Dr. E. Tyler Smith;
and other well-known persons.

The late Sir David Brewster was almost as unfortunate as
Faraday in his relations to this perplexing subject. In the early
part of 1855, on the invitation of Mr. William Cox, of Jermyn
Street, London, Brewster was at a sda7ice, where Mr. Home was
the medium. The late Lord Brougham, the late Mrs. Trollope,
her son Mr. Thomas Trollope, and Mr. Benjamin Coleman, were
also present. Seated in a private room, in the open light of day,
the party saw, among other extraordinary things, a heavy table

SIR DAVID LOSES HIS TEMPER.

rise from the floor ; a phenomenon which Faraday had asserted
the " undeviating truth" of Newton's law would not permit, and
which, to believe in, was proof of " deficiency of judgment."

In a letter to Mr. Coleman (Oct. 9, 1855), Brewster writes,
"It is true that, at Mr. Cox's house, Mr. Home, Mr. Cox, Lord
Brougham, and myself sat down to a small table, Mr. Home
having f)reviously requested us to examine if there was any ma-
chinery about his person ; an examination, however, which we
declined to make. When all our hands wer^ upon the table,
«ioises were heard, rappings in abuniiaftce^ and finally, when
we rose up, the table actually rose, as appeared to me, from the
ground. This result I do not attempt to explain."

In a conversation afterwards with Mr. Coleman, as the latter
testifies, Sir David Brewster scouted the idea of there having
been trick or delusion in the matter; but said, " Spirit is the last
thing I will give in to."

At first stunned and surprised. Sir David seems to have subse-
quently been laughed out of his profound impressions, and to have
joined the scoffers. He wrote a letter to the "Morning Adver-
tiser," in which he affected to cast ridicule on the subject. Mr.
Cox, Mr.. Trollope, and Mr. Coleman, each wrote to refute Sir
David, and placed him in a position before the public not the
most honorable to his consistency and courage.

Goaded by these confutations, he afterwards, in a published
addressi dismissed the §tupendous amount of testimony con-
firming the phenomena of Spiritualism, with the following
words : *' All such beliefs are the result of an imperfect education,
of the want of general knowledge. They are the observations
of ill-trained faculties, the cravings of morbid and mystic tem-
peraments that have been suckled on the husks and garbage of
literature," &c.

And yet his own letter is in existence, in which he says, " This
result [the rising of the table] I do not attempt to explain " I

He sees a table under his nose rise from the ground; does not
attempt to explain it; will, on reflection, rather distrust his
senses than admit that the fact was other than an appearance;

PLANCHETTE.

and contents himself with referring the belief of others, seeing
a similar thing, and believing that thejr see it, to " ill-trained
faculties "1

If such is to be the last word of science on the subject, is it to
be wondered that science has been told not to block the way?

It is pleasant to turn from these instances of arrogance and
illiberality on the part of men of science to others of a ^ry dif-
ferent character, from men who are their peers. The late Pro-
fessor Hare (born, in Philadelphia, 1781, died 1858) was eminent
both as a chemist and electrician. For twenty-nine years he was#
professor of chemistry in the medical school of the university
of Pennsylvania. After first maintaining, in a published letter,
dated July 27, 1853, mechanical view of the phenomena taken
by Faraday, Dr. Hare instituted a series of scientific tests and
experiments, the result of which was, that he became convinced
there was a new order of facts which could not be explained on
Faraday*s theory. Though he may be charged with credulity in
accepting much that came by supposed spiritual communi-
cations, no one can deny that he investigated the physical phe-
nomena with a rare amount of patience and skill. He was
thoroughly convinced of the genuineness of the manifesta-
tions.

Dr. Hare had been an unbeliever in deity and in the immor-
tality of the soul. Shortly before his death, he avowed himself
not only a Spiritualist, but " a believer in revelation, and in a
revelation through Jesus of Nazareth."

Somewhat similar to the experience of Dr. Hare was that of
Dr. John Elliotson, F.R.S., president of the Royal Medical and
Chirurgical Society of London, and who died July, 1868, at the
age of eighty. He had been a fearless investigator of the phe-
nomena of mesmerism, but had rejected some of the higher
marvels of somnambulism and clairvoyance. A materialist in
his belief, he had written an elaborate treatise denying the ex-
istence of an immortal soul. He denounced all mediums as
impostors, and regarded as mere delusions the facts claimed by
modern Spiritualism.

SCIENTIFIC RE-ACTIOX. 21

In the year 1863, being at Dieppe, he was introduced to Mr. '
D. D. Home, and spent some time in investigating, with the aid
of the sons of his friend, Dr. Symes, the phenomena attributed
to Spiritualism. The result was, in the language of the "London
Morning Post," of Aug. 3, 1868, ** that he expressed his convic-
tion of the truth of the phenomena, and became a sincere Chris-
tian, whose handbook henceforth was the Bible. Some time
After this, he said he had been living all his life in darkness, and
had thought there was nothing in existence but the material."

Professor A. De Morgan,' of London, as contemporary encyclo-
pedias will show, is of the first eminence as a mathematician.
In 1863, a volume of some four hundred pages, from the pen of
his wife, appeared, bearing the title, ** From Matter to Spirit:
the Result of Ten Years* Experience in Spfrit Manifestations."
The preface is by the professor himself ; and in it he plainly ad-
mits his belief in the reality of the phenomena, although incred-
ulous as to their spiritual origin. •

"I have no. acquaintance," he says, "either with P. or Q.;
but I feel sure that the decided conviction of all who can see
both sides of the shield must be, that it is more likely that P.
has seen a ghost than that Q. knows he cannot have seen one."

"I am perfectly convinced," he says, "that I have both seen
and heard, in a manner which should make unbelief impossible,
things called spiritual, which cannot be taken by a rational being
to be capable of explanation by imposture, coincidence, or mis-
take. So far I feel the ground firm under me. But when it
comes to what is the cause of these phenomena, I find I cannot
adopt any explanation which has yet been suggested. . . .
Spirit or ho spirit, there is at least a reading of one mind by
something out of that mind. . . . •

"The Spiritualists, beyond a doubt, are in the track that has
led to all advancement in physical science : their opponents are
the representatives of those who have striven against prog-
ress. ...

" There is a higher class of obstructives who, without jest or
sarcasm, bring up principles, possibilities, and the natur* of

PLANCHETTE.

things. These most worthy and respectable opponents arc, if
wrong, to be reckoned the lineal descendants of those who
proved the earth could not be round, because the people on the
other side would then tumble off. . . .

" I have said that the deluded spirit-rappers are on the right
track : they have the spirit and the method of the grand time
when those paths were cut through the uncleared forest in which
it is now the daily routine to walk. What was that spirit? It
was the spirit of universal examination, wholly unchecked by
fear of being detected in the examination of nonsense. . . .

** I hold those persons to be incautious who give in at once to
the spirit doctrine, and never stop to imagine the possibility of
unknown power other than disembodied intelligence. But I am
sure that this calling in of the departed spirit, because they do
not know what else to fix it on, may be justified by those who
do it, upon the example of the philosophers of our own
day. ...

" My state of mind, which refers the whole either to unseen
intelligence, or something which man has never had any con-
ception of, proves me to be out of the pale of the Royal
Society. . . .

"What I reprobate is, not the wariness which widens and
lengthens inquiry, but the assumption which prevents or nar-
rows it; the imposture theory, which frequently infers imposture
from the assumed impossibility of the phenomena asserted,
and then alleges imposture against the examination of the evi-
dence. . . .

" It is now [1863] twelve or thirteen years since the matter
began to be everywhere talked about; during which time there
have been many announcements of the total extinction of the
spirit-mania. But in several cases, as in Tom Moore*s fable,
the extinguishers have caught fire **

The late Daniel Davis, of Boston, well known as an electrical
instrument-maker, was so thoroughly persuaded of the genuine-
ness of the phenomena, as manifested in raps, movements of
tablcAj &c., that^ after exhausting all his practical knowledge

MR. VARLEY'S testimony.

in testing them, he offered a reward of a thousand dollars to any
one who would produce them independently of any medium.
It is needless to say that his offer was never accepted.

Another electrician, Mr. C. F. Varley, at the trial of the cele-
brated case of Lyon versus Home, in London, April, 1868, made
oath as follows : " I have been a student of electricity, chemistry,
and natural philosophy, for twenty-six years, and a telegraphic
engineer by profession, for twenty-one years ; and I am the con-
sulting electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, and of
the Electric and International Company.

"About nine or ten years ago, having had my attention
directed to the subject of Spiritualism, by its spontaneous and
unexpected development in my own family, in the form of
clairvoyant visions and communications, I determined to test
the truth of the alleged physical phenomena, to the best of my
ability, and to ascertain, if possible, the nature of the force which
produced them.

"Accordingly, about eight years ago, I called on Mr. Home,
and stated that I had not yet witnessed any of the physical
phenomena, but that I was a scientific man, and wished to in-
vestigate them carefully.

" He immediately gave me every facility for the purpose, and
desired me to satisfy myself in every possible way ; and I have
been with him on divers occasions when the phenomena have
occurred. I have examined and tested them with him and with
others, under conditions of my own choice, under a bright light,
and have made the most jealous and searching scrutiny. I have
been since then, for seven months, in America, where the sub-
ject attracts great attention and study, and where it is cultivated
by some of the ablest men ; and having experimented with, and
compared the forces with electricity and magnetism, and after
having applied mechanical and mental tests, I entertained no
doubt whatever that the manifestations which I have myself
examined were not due to the operation of any of the recognized ^
physical laws of nature, and that there has been present on the
occasions above mentioned some intelligence other than thsit oC
the medium and observers."

PLANCHETTE.

Mr. J. H. Simpson, another English electrician, the inventor
of electrical apparatus, including one for printing at a distance
by the telegraph, writes (1868) to ** Human Nature," a monthly
magazine, published in London, as follows : "That the physical
effects are, in Mr. Home's case, produced without aid from elec-
tricity, ferro-magnetism, or apparatus of any kind, I am well
satisfied. They are bond fide. Of that no one who witnesses
them can have a doubt." He adds, however, "I believe that
nine-tenths of the phenomena produced through Mr. Home will
some day be shown to have nothing to do with aid lent by dis-
embodied spirits."

With regard to the one-tenth remaining, Mr. Simpson sug-
gests no theory as to their origin.

One of the earliest and most accomplished inquirers into these
phenomena was William Martin Wilkinson, of 44, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, London, Solicitor. He is a brother of the dis-
tinguished J. Garth Wilkinson. In his affidavit (1868) in the
Home case, already referred to, he says, —

"Such phenomena have been carefully observed by several
of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe, and by persons of
eminence in the leading professions, and in literature and
science, and by practical men of business, under conditions
when any thing like fraud or contrivance was impossible.
Various theories have been suggested, by way of explanation,
connected with the abstrusest problems in biology and meta-
physics. My own views on this subject are probably unim-
portant; but as charges and insinuations are made against me,
and the subject of Spiritualism is so misunderstood by the pub-
lic, I have the right to say, that having had my attention drawn
to certain remarkable occurrences, about eighteen years ago, in
the house of a relative, and which continued for nearly twelve
years, I have since that time occupied a portion of my leisure in
.inquiring into the subject, and in arranging the various phe-
nomena, and comparing them with historical statements of
similar occurrences.

" I have very seldom been at any siauees, and that not for

A SUPERCILIOUS PHILOSOPHER.

many years, having entirely satisfied myself years ago of the '
truth of most of the phenomena. — that is, of their actual happen-
ing; and I have at the same time and for many years formed
and constantly expressed the opinion that it was wrong to be-
lieve in, or act upon, what might appear to be communications
from the unseen, on their own evidence merely. I have in-
variably inculcated that no such communication should be re-
ceived as of so much value as if it were told by a friend in this
world, inasmuch as you know something of your friend here,
and cannot know the identity or origin of the communicant.

" I have frequently referred to the passage in the Old Testa-
ment, in which it is said that God sent a lying spirit, and to the
directions given us in the New Testament, to try or test the
spirits. I have pursued the inquiry under great misrepresenta-
tions and obloquy, and I intend to continue it as long as I can ;
and I believe that the subjects of spiritual visions, trances,
ecstasies, prophecies, angelic protection, and diabolic possession,
anciently recorded, have already had light thrown upon them,
and will have much more. I submit that I have a right to
pursue an inquiry into psychological laws, without being sub-
jected to ridicule or abuse, and that the proof of supernatural
occurrences is valuable in both a scientific and religious point
of view. The mere physical phenomena which the public
erroneously fancies to be the whole of Spiritualism, and which,
of course, afford room for spurious imitation and fraud, are in
my belief the most unimportant part of the subject, and have not
for years engaged my attention."

Mr. G. H. Lewes, author of a "History of Philosophy," took
part in the Tyndall-Home controversy, in a long letter, (May,
1868), the burden of which was, that men of science were quite
right to refuse to waste their valuable time in investigating the
pretensions of mediums, and that ** had the tone of Faraday's
letter been ten times more offensive, it would have been no
excuse for Mr. Home's declining his investigation."

Upon which the London *• Spiritual Magazine " remarks, " Let
the matter as to examination be put on its right grouad\ tckccvOo^^

PLANCHETTE.

that scientific and literary men have the same opportunities of
examination of the question as any one else, and that these
opportunities are so open, easy, and common, that many mil-
lions of people have already examined and satisfied themselves,
many of them men of the highest science, learning, and ability.
It would be stepping out of the way nojv to ask any scientific
man in. We protest against conceited, and, on this question,
profoundly ignorant men, treating it as some novelty just dis-
covered in a corner^ because they wilfully keep themselves unin-
formed of it. Spiritualism is a great fact, as much past the
mere day of testing and proving as even the law of gravitation.
When as many men and women have accepted it as would peo-
ple Scotland several times over, it is surely ridiculous for such
as Professor Tyndall and Mr. Lewes to ask for some scientific
nob to settle the point for them. If he wishes, let the nob do it
on his own account, or stand out of the ivay*^

We have said enough to show the attitude of science, past
and present, with some honorable exceptions, towards the great
facts re-asserted by modern Spiritualism.

The reality of the alleged facts, supposed to be spiritual, must
be tried by the same tests as any other class of alleged facts;
that is, by testimony and experiment. It is believed that they
have been so tried. Whether they are caused by spiritual agency
is another and separate question ; and whether scientific men are
the best qualified to decide this point may well admit of doubt.
They have no instruments to lay hold of spirits; no chemical
tests by which to detect their presence. Retorts and galvanic
batteries are here of no avail. A simple woman, like Joan of
Arc or the Seeress of Prevorst, may be the true expert here.

The complaint is often made that science has outrun religious
belief; that as men have acquired more knowledge, they have
become more and more unsettled in their opinions as to their
inner life, and in the existence even of the spiritual world. The
facts of modern Spiritualism present themselves no sooner than
they are needed to meet the want which this tendency has
created.

HUMILITY OF TRUB SCIENCE.

There has long been a vague notion that the discoveries of
the age have so far enlightened men, that they are better quali-
fied to form accurate opinions in regard to certain occult phe-
nomena than were the great intellects of antiquity, or of three
centuries since. Many persons quietly accept it as something
not to be questioned, that such men as Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato, Plutarch, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Baxter, and Mather,
were mere children, compared with the college professors of our
own day, in their ability to judge of the genuineness of these
phenomena. Because science has invented a few chemical tricks,
. and has made great discoveries in electricity and magnetism,
it is assumed that the ancients must have been more easily im-
posed on than we, in regard to psychological marvels. There
is no evidence whatever that such was the fact.

The phenomena on which the ancients based their belief in
gods or spirits, and the Blackstones and Glanvils their belief in
witchcraft, were, with unimportant exceptions, experiences anal-
ogous to those to which thousands of persons are now bearing
testimony. Science has not made us one jot better able to dis-
pute the genuineness of these phenomena than were the men of
former ages.

"We refuse," says a recent writer, "to believe assertions
without evidence : we decline to reject testimony merely be-
cause it vouches what is new or strange. It is not in the least
impossible, it is not even improbable, it is probable, rea-
soning from the past it is even certain, that real phenomena
should reveal themselves totally inexplicable by any known law,
apparently a violation 'of physical laws, perhaps new prin-
ciples, pregnant with marvels to which the fictions of the past
are prosaic. What Paul ever thought of making the sun paint?
What Joseph or Elisha could ever converse with a friend three
thousand miles across the ocean? Talk of prophecy! Why,
Halley predicted the very day and minute of the appearance of
a comet which was myriads of miles away at the time he died I
There is no event better authenticated in history than Sweden-
borg's vision of the great fire ©f Stockholm. The perfectly

PLANCHETTE.

ascertained facts of mesmerism, clairvoyance, and electricity,
prepare us to wait with reverence and candor upon the unfold-
ing of such phenomena as are attested by Bell, Gully, and Col-
lier ; and we shall never be ashamed to own, that as truth in all
ages has owed very much more to credulity than to conceited
Iskepticism and self-sufficient prejudice, so there is no phenom-
/enon, however marvellous, that we should a priori reject as
impossible, in the face of cognate facts, and accumulated, in-
telligent, and unexceptionable testimony."

It is the duty of Science to wait upon Nature, to reverently
listen to what she chooses to tell, and in the way it pleases her
to utter it, and deal with the facts that are manifested without
ignoring them because others are not manifested. We must be
glad to learn her lessons on the conditions she chooses to pre-
scribe, thankful to accept such insight into her arcana as she
vouchsafes to grant.

We can readily understand why timid sectarians should de-
nounce the investigation of these phenomena as dangerous ; but
how, in this nineteenth century, a committee of intelligent
gentlemen, renowned for their attainments in their respective
departments of science, and whose province it was to consider
the subject from a purely scientific stand-point, should think to
frighten grown men and women from pursuing an inquiry into
certain remarkable facts of nature, by raising the cry of " im-
morality," and talking of their " solemn duty to warn the com-
munity," &c., would indeed be astounding, did we not remember
that history repeats itself, and that there were "professors"
before the year of grace 1857 > even among those wise ones who
denounced the researches and revelations of Copernicus and
Galileo as immoral, pernicious, diabolical, tending " to lessen
the truth of man and the pUrity of woman."

CHAPTER II.

THE PHENOMENA OF X847.

"Thete is in nature nothing interpolated or without connection, as in a bad
tragedy."— -<4rM/<7/&.

TN the little village of Hydesville, Wayne County, New York,
there stood, in 1847, a small house, which had been occupied
by Mr. Michael Weekman.^ He had been troubled by certain rap-
pings, of which he could give no explanation. But they at-
tracted little attention, and may have had no connection with
subsequent developments. It was reserved for the family of Mr. \
John D. Fox, of Rochester, a respectable farmer, to have their
names inseparably associated with the first development of the
modern spiritual movement, based on the phenomena now chal-
lenging the regards of all thoughtful persons.

Mr. Fox moved into the house the nth of December, 1847.
His family consisted of himself, his wife, and six children; but
only the two youngest were staying with them at the time of the
manifestations, — Margaret, twelve years old, and Kate, nine
years old. The former of these sisters subsequently became the
wife of the celebrated Captain Kane, the Arctic explorer.

From the first, the family were disturbed by noises in the
hou3e; but these they attributed for a time to rats and mice.
In January, 1848, however, the sounds became loud and start-
ling. Knocks, so violent as to produce a tremulous motion in
the furniture and floor, were heard. Occasionally there would
be a patter of footsteps. The bed-clothes would be pulled off ;
and Kate would feel a cold hand passed over her face.

PLANCHETTE.

Throughout February, and to the middle of March, the dis-
turbances increased. Chairs and the dining-table were moved
from their places. Mr. and Mrs. Fox, night after night, with a
lighted candle, explored the house, but in vain. While they
stood close to the door, raps would be made on it ; and on their
opening it no one would be found.

On the night of March 31st, having been broken of their rest
for several nights previous, they retired to bed earlier than usual,
hoping to sleep without disturbance. The sounds, however, were
resumed. They occurred near the bed occupied by Kate and
Margaret. Kate attempted to .imitate the sounds by the snap-
ping of her fingers. There was the same number of raps in re-
sponse. She then said, " Now do as I do ; count one, two, three,
four, five, six," at the same time striking her hands together.
The same number of raps responded, at similar intervals. The
mother of the girls then said, " Count ten I " and ten distinct
raps were heard. " Count fifteen ! " and that number of sounds
followed. She then said, "Tell us the age of Katie" (the
youngest daughter), " by rapping one for each year; " and the
number of years was rapped correctly. " How many children
have I? " There were seven raps in reply. " Ah ! " she thought,
" it can blunder sometimes." " Try again." Still the number
of raps was seven. Mrs. Fox was surprised. " Are they all
alive?" she asked. No answer. "How many are dead?" There
was a single rap. She had lost one child.

" Do as I do," said Kate Fox. Such was the commencement.
" Who can tell," asks Owen, "where the end will be? "

" A Yankee girl, but nine years old, following up, more in
sport than earnest, a chance observation, became the instigator
of a movement, which, whatever its true character, has had its
influence throughout the civilized world. The spark had been
several times ignited, — once, at least, two centuries ago ; but it
had died out each time without effect. It kindled no flame till
the middle of the nineteenth century."

The instances here referred to are the answers by knocks
elicited by Mr. Mompesson in 1661, and by Glanvil and the
Wesley family.

GLANVIL AND WESLEY.

The Rev. Joseph Glanvil, chaplain in ordinary to Charles II.,
was a writer of great erudition and ability. In his " Sadducis-
mus Triumphatus," written to show that the phenomena of
witchcraft were genuine occurrences, he gives an account of Mr.
Mompesson's haunted house atTedworth, where it was observed
that, on beating or calling for any tune, it would be exactly
answered by drumming. When asked by some one to give three
knocks, if it were a certain spirit, it gave three knocks, and no
more. Other questions were put, and answered by knocks
exactly. Glanvil himself says, that, being told it would imitate
noises, he scratched, on the sheet of the bed, five, then seven,
then ten times; and it returned exactly the same number of
scratches each time.

Melancthon relates that at Oppenheim, in Germany, in 1620,
the same experiment of rapping, and having the raps exactly
answered by the spirit which haunted a house, was successfully,
tried ; and he tells us that Luther was visited by a spirit who
announced his coming by " a rapping at his door."

In the famous Wesley case, the haunting of the house of John
Wesley's father, the Parsonage at Epworth, Lincolnshire, in
1716, for a period of two months, the supposed spirit used
to imitate Mr. Wesley's knock at the gate. It responded to the
Amen at prayers. Emily, one of the daughters, knocked ; and it
answered her. Mr. Wesley knocked a stick on the joists of the
kitchen ; and it knocked again, in number of strokes and in loud-
ness exactly replying. When Mrs. Wesley stamped, it knocked
in reply.

It is not surprising that John JWesley was a Spiritualist.
"With my latest breath," he writes, "will I bear my testimony
against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible
world ; I mean that of witchcraft, confirmed by the testimony of
all ages."

A writer in the " Encyclopaedia Metropolitana " (London,
1861), referring to these and similar phenomena, observes:
"It is, to say the least, a remarkable fact, that such occurrences
are to be found in the histories of all ages, and, if inquiries are

PLANCHETTK.

but sincerely made, in the traditions of nearly all living fami-
lies. The writer can testify to several monitions of this kind
portending death; and the authentic records of such things
would make a volume."

In the "Life of Frederica HaufF(6, the Seeress of Prevorst, by
Dr. Justinus Kerner, chief physician at Weinsberg " (who died
in 1859), alniost every phase of the recent spiritual phenomena
is described as pertaining to her experience. To these more
than twenty credible witnesses testify. They consisted in re-
peated knockings, noises in the air, a tramping up and down
stairs by day and night, the moving of ponderable articles, &c.

But we must return to the experiences of the Fox family.
Startled and somewhat alarmed by the manifestations of intelli-
gence, Mrs. Fox asked if it was a human being that was making
the noise, and, if it was, to manifest it by making the same noise.
There was no sound. She then said, " If you are a spirit, make
two distinct sounds." Two raps were accordingly heard.

The members of the family by this time had all left their beds,
and the house was again thoroughly searched, as it had been
before, but without discovering any thing that could explain the
mystery; and, after a few more questions and responses by raps,
the neighbors were called in to assist in tracing the phenomenon
to its cause. But the neighbors were no more successful than
the family had been, and confessed themselves thoroughly con-
founded.

For several subsequent days, the village was in a turmoil of
excitement; and multitudes visited the house, heard the raps,
and interrogated the apparent intelligence which controlled
them, but without obtaining any clew to the discovery of the
agent, further than its own persistent declaration that it was a
spirit.

About three weeks after these occurrences, David, a son of
Mr. and Mrs. Fox, went alone into the cellar, where the raps
were then being heard, and said, "If you are the spirit of a
human being who once lived on the earth, can you rap to the
letters that will spell your name? and if so, now rap three

THE ROCHESTER KNOCKINGS.

times." Three raps were promptly given, and David proceeded
to call .the alphabet, writing down the letters as they were indi-
cated ; and the result was the name, " Charles B. Rosma," a
name quite unknown to the family, and which they were after-
ward' unable to trace. The statement was in like manner'
obtained from the invisible intelligence, that he was the spirit of
a peddler, who had been murdered in that house some years pre-
vious. According to Mr. David Fox, the floor was subsequently
dug up, to the depth of more than five feet, when the remains
of a human body were found.

Soon after these occurrences, the family removed to Roches-
ter, at which place the manifestations still accompanied them ;.
and here it was discovered, by the rapping of the letters of the
alphabet in the manner before described, that different spirits
were apparently using this channel of communication; and
that, in short, almost any one, in coming into the presence of '
the two girls, could get a comniunication from what purported "
to be the spirits of his departed friends, the same often being
accompanied by tests which satisfied the interrogator as to the
spirits' identity.

A new phenomenon was also observed in the frequent moving
of tables and other ponderable bodies, without appreciable
agency, in the presence of these two girls. These manifesta-
tions, growing more and more remarkable, attracted numerous
visitors, some from long distances ; and the phenomenon began,
as it were, to propagate itself, and to be witnessed in other fami-
lies in Rochester and vicinity ; while, as coincident therewith,
susceptible persons would sometimes fall into apparent trances,
and become clairvoyant, and re-affirm these raps and physical
movements to be the production of spirits.

In November, a public meeting was called ; and a committee
appointed to examine into the phenomena. They reported that
they were unable to trace the phenomena to any known mun-
dane agency. Of course, the large majority of persons pro-
nounced the whole thing an imposture; and the public press
was against it, almost without an exception. There were stcyt^ftA

PLANCHETTE.

that the Fox girls produced the sounds by their knees and toe-
joints ; and one of their relations, a Mrs. Culver, declared that
Kate Fox had told her how it was done. If the young and mis-
chief-loving Kate had ever told her so, it must have been in
sport; for Mrs. Culver's explanation was soon rejected as not
covering the phenomena.

The girls were subjected to the examination of a committee of
ladies, who had them divested of their clothes, laid on pillows,
and watched ; still the sounds took place on walls, doors, tables,
ceilings, and at quite a distance from the mediums.
^ We have before us a letter, received by us, dated Rochester,
N.Y., Feb. i6, 1850. It is from the pen of a friend, an English
gentleman of high culture, who, at our request, availed himself
of a brief stay in Rochester to look into the subject of the mys-
terious knockings. He made two calls on the Misses Fox, to
hear the rappings, and wrote us as follows in regard to them : —

"My opinion of the rappings is that they are human, very
human, sinfully human, made to get money by. If really there
is a ghost in the matter, then quite certainly he is very fickle,
something of a liar, very clumsy, very trifling, and altogether
wanting in good taste. It would indeed be painful to me, ex-
ceedingly, if I thought that any man on this earth, on dying,
had ever turned into such a paltry, contemptible ghost.

" Yet at a distance from this place, as I understand, there are
men affecting philosophy, and even a skeptical philosophy, who
are ready to believe, and who do believe, that these Rochester
knockings are a spirit. A very ridiculous spirit! An untrue
ghost, a very pretending ghost! a ghost of no reverence or awe
whatever ! Indeed, a ghost that is no ghost at all !

" Here, now, I have written what will satisfy your curiosity
about this absurd business. My experience in it will be useful
to me, in regard to superstition as a disease of the human mind.
I have learned something from the errand I have been on. Bui
to me the knockings themselves are not nearly so wonderful as the
echoes they make in the city of New York."

The gentleman who wrote this letter subsequently made a very

MULTIPLICATION OF MEDIUMS.

careful investigation of the phenomena, as manifested through
the mediumship of the late G. A. Redman, and became fuller
convinced of their genuineness. He accepted the spiritual hy-
pothesis as to their origin, and is now (1868) — after years of
examination and reflection, both in this country and in Europe —
an unwavering believer,* and one who can give solid reasons for
his belief; thus justifying that remark of Novalis, who says,
"To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first
have disbelieved it, and disputed against it."

It was soon found that the marvellous phenomen% could be
produced through numerous persons of either sex. Mediums
for the manifestations began to spring up on all sides ; and, as a
matter of course, spurious phenomena began to be mixed with
the genuine.

The raps were soon superseded by more astonishing and in-
explicable experiences. Tables, chairs, and other furniture
would be moved about, raised from the floor, and, in some cases,
so powerfully, that six full-grown men have been known to be
cftrried about a room on a table, the feet of which did not
touch the floor, and which no other person touched. Hand-
bells would be rung, guitars floated about the room and played
on, tambourines played on, and moved about with marvellous
force; and at last spirit-hands would be both seen and felt.
Although these phenomena would be generally produced in the
dark, there were enough of them produced in the light to satisfy
inquirers that the effects were not imaginary or spurious.

Mediums were developed with various powers. There rapidly
sprang into notice musical, writing, speaking, drawing, and
healing mediums. The press and the pulpit sneered and ful-
minated; but the work went on with amazing celerity, until
millions were not ashamed to admit their belief in the phe-
nomena.

At the rooms of J. Koon, Athens County, Ohio, in February,

• See on page 125, of this volume, an account, from his pen, of certain phe-
nomena for which Miss Lord was the medium, which he witnessed in our company the
latter part of the year i860.

PLANCHETTE.

1854, musical instruments were played on with astonishing force.
Five witnesses, whose names are published, * testify to seeing
spirit-hands on these occasions. They say, "They [the spirits]
beat a march on the drum, and carried the tambourine all around
over our heads, playing on it the while. They then dropped it
on the table, took the triangle from the wall, and carried it all
arbunc, as they did the other instruments, for some time. We
could only hear the dull sound of the steel ; then would peal
forth the full ring of the instrument. They let this fall on the
table also. ^ After this, they spoke through the trumpet to all,
stating that they were glad to see them. Then they went to a
gentleman who was playing on the violin, and took it out of his
hand up into the air, all around, thrumming the strings, and
playing as well as mortals can do. They played on the trumpet,
then took the harp, and played on both instruments ; and, at the
same time, sang with four voices, sounding like female voices,
which made the room swell with melody.

" After this, they made their hands visible again, took paper,
brought it out on the other table, and commenced writing slowly^
when one of the visitors asked them if they could not write
faster : the hand then moved so fast we could hardl3' see it go ;
but all could hear the pencil move over the paper for some five
minutes or so. When done, the spirit took up the trumpet and
spoke, saying the communication was for friend ' Pierce ; and, at
the same time, the hand came up to him, and gave the paper
into his hand. Now, said the spirit, if friend Pierce would put
his hand on the table, they would shake hands with him for a
testimony to the world, as he could do much good with such a
fact while on his spiritual mission. He then put his hand on
the table by their request ; the hand came up to him, took his
fingers, and shook them. Then it went away, but soon came
back, patted his hand some minutes, then left again. Now it
came back the third time ; and, taking his whole hand for some

* D. Hasteler, Pittsburg; A. P. Pierce, Philadelphia; H. F. Partridge, Wheeling,
Va. ; Lewis Dugdale, farmer, Ohio ; Charles C. Stillman, Marion, Ohio.

THE DAVKNPORT BROTHERS.

five minutes, he examined it all over, and found it as natural as
a human hand, even to the nails on the fingers. He traced the
hand up as far as the wrist, and found nothing any further than
that point."

Having, on some forty occasions, witnessed phenomena analo-
gous to these, and quite as remarkable, we cannot doubt that
this account is scrupulously true, so far as the fucts are con-
cerned.

We have already had something to say of the Davenport
Brothers. In 1846, their family in Buff'alo were disturbed by
what they described as " raps, thumps, loud noises, snaps,
cracking noises in the dead of night." In 1850, having read in
the newspapers of the Rochester knockings, they sat round a
table with their hands upon it, and waited further developments.
These began by knockings and other noises, and table-tippings.
Soon, the alphabet was called into use ; thfti, through the hand
of Ira, the elder boy, messages were written by an invisible
scribe; a nd Ira was "fl oated inth e air ove r the hea ds-oL^ tbe-
pe ople, and from one end oT the room to the othe r, at a heig ht^
of nine feet from the floor, every person in the ro om having the
opportunity of seeing him as he floated in the air above themT*
To add to the wonder, William and Elizabeth (a sister) were
also upborne ; and other marvels took place.

On the fifth evening of their proceedings (according to Dr.
Nichols), " in compliance with a direction rapped out on the
table by the now familiar method of calling over the alphabet, a
pistol was procured, and capped, but not loaded. One of the
boys was then directed to go to a vacant corner of the room and
fire it. At the instant that he fired, the pistol was taken froni
his hand ; and, by its fiash, it was plainly seen, by every person
in the room, held by a human figure, looking smilingly at the
company. The light and the form vanished together, as when
we see a landscape in a flash of lightning; and the pistol fell
upon the floor."

Under the directions of supposed spirits, the brothers were
tied with all sorts of complicated knots, and then released in aa

PJLANCHETTE.

inexplicably brief space of time. The news of what was taking
place soon spread ; and many eager inquirers came to the house.
Such was the curiosity, that public exhibitions were given. The
fact that the phenomena were produced for the most part in the
dar't, naturally gave rise to suspicion and dispute.

In the year 1868, at the Cleveland Convention of Spiritualists,
a leport was adopted, reprobating what were called "the dark
circle impostors, who pretend to do physical impossibilities,
claiming that spirits do them, while they give no proof of what
they assert." " After a diligent and careful investigation of the
subject," says the report, "we are irresistibly forced to the con-
clusion that darkness is not a necessary condition for physical
manifestations; but that it m a condition assumed and insisted
upon by tricksters, having no other use than to afford oppor-
tunities for deception."

These remarks ar^ likely to mislead. They appear to be aimed
principally at the class of manifestations for which the Daven-
ports are celebrated. That the most remarkable of the manifes-
tations produced in the dark have been produced in the light,
will not be disputed ; but it does not follow from this that dark-
ness may not sometimes be more favorable to their production.
Darkness, it is true, may offer more opportunity for fraud ; but
a little more trouble taken will soon satisfy the patient inves-
tigator. We do not doubt that genuine mediums are often
tempted to "help on" the phenomena. But careful observers
do not find it difficult to separate the true from the simulated.
We must not expect to find all mediums persons of scrupulous
integrity.

The Davenports were mere boys when they commeYiced their
exhibitions ; and it would not be surprising, if sometimes, impa-
tient of the capriciousness or slowness of " the spirits," they tried
to make them " hurry up," by some boyish acts that may prop-
erly be denounced as tricks. Indeed, Dr. John F. Gray, of New
York, well known to American Spiritualists as identified from
the first with the cause, and a thoroughly impartial, independent
investigator, wrote us, under date of New York, June 7, 1864, as
follows : —

DR. LOOMIS'S TESTIMONY.

" I have not seen the Davenports this time here ; but I enter- '
tain no doubt of the genuineness of the manifestations made in
their presence. When they were here some years ago, they
were detected in making spurious manifestations when the
genuine failed."

Surely the testimony of careful, scientific investigators, like Dr.
Gray, thoroughly prepared against fraud, and anticipating it, is
worth something in a case like this.

Dr. Loomis, professor of chemistry in the Medical College,
Georgetown, has given a minute account of his investigations
into the phenomena produced through the Davenports. His
testimony will carry the more weight with the skeptic, when it is
known that he does- not admit the spiritual hypothesis, but at-
tributes the thaumaturgic occurrences to some new, unknown
force. From Dr. Loomis's report, we extract enough to indicate
the thoroughness of his investigation, and the character of his
conclusions : —

"At one end of Willard's Hall is a large platform about fifteen
feet square, and three feet from the floor, carpeted. At the back
side of this platform, resting on three horses, about eighteen
inches high, with four leg^s, each one inch in diameter, was a
box or cabinet, in which the phenomena occurred.

*' I find the box seems to be made for two purposes only, ist,
to exclude the light ; and 2d, to be easily taken apart and packed
in a small space for transportation. It is made of black walnut
boards, from one-fourth to one-h^lf of an inch in thickness.
The boards are mostly united by hooks and hinges, so as to be
taken apart and folded up. The "box is about seven feet high,
six feet wide, and two feet deep ; and the back v^as one inch in
front of the brick wall of the building. It has three doors, each
two feet wide and as high as the box ; so that when the doors are
open the entire interior of the box is exposed to the audience.

"Across each end and along the back are boards about ten
inches wide, arranged for seats, firmly attached to the box.
These are one-half inch walnut boards. At the middle and near
the back edge of each of these seats are two half-inch hole8^

PJLANCHETTE.

through which ropes may be passed for the purpose of tying the
boys firmly to their seats. The entire structure is so light and
frail as to utterly preclude the idea that any thing whatever could
be concealed within or about its several parts, by which any aid
could be given in producing the phenomena witnessed. The
top and bottom of the box are of the same thin material, and not
tongued and grooved; so that the joints were all open. The
floor was carpeted with a loose piece of carpet, which was taken
out. The entire inside of the box was literally covered with
bruises and dents, from mere scratches to those of an eighth of
an inch deep. I examined the box thoroughly in all its parts,
and am satisfied that there was nothing concealed in it ; nor was
there any way by which any thing could be-introduced into it to
aid in producing the phenomena. The phenomena exhibited
may be divided into several classes.

"a. Before the performance commenced, the audience chose a
committee of three, of which I was one. The other two were
strangers to each other and to myself. I never saw them before
that evening, have never seen them since, and do not know their
names. One of the committee — a stout, muscular man, over
six feet in height, professionally a sea-captain, and who re-
marked to me as he was performing the operation, that he had
pinioned many prisoners — tied one of the boys in the following
manner: viz., a strong hemp rope was passed three times round
the wrist, and tied. It was then passed three times round the
other wrist, and tied again, the hands being behind the back.
The rope was then passed twice around the body, and tied in
front as tightly as possible. Before this was completed, the
wrists had commenced swelling, so that the flesh between the
cords WAS even with their outer surface, the hands puffed with
blood and quite cool. The circulation was almost completely
stopped in the wrists.

"The boy complained of pain, and said, *Tie the rope as you
wish ; but I cannot stand it. I am in your power ; but you must
loosen the rope.' I remarked to the captain that it was cruel to
let the rope remain so tight as it was, that security could be

DR. LOOMIS'S TESTIMONY.

gained without being unnecessarily cruel. We examined hit
wrists again ; and the captain decided not to loosen the rope.
The whole work of tying the boy was closely watched hy^me
during the entire progress, and thoroughly examined when
done ; and I must say that very little feeling was exhibited foi
the boy. No human being could be bound so tightly without
suffering excruciating pain. His hands were released in about
fifteen minutes. I then examined his wrists carefully. Every
fibre of the rope had made its imprint on the wrists. I examined
them a second time, one hour and thirty minutes after; and the
marks of the rope were plainly visible. He was pinioned as
tightly around the body. After being thus tied by his hands,
he was seated at one end of the box; and a second rope being
passed around his wrists, was drawn both ends through the
holes in the seat, and firmly tied underneath. His legs were
tied in a similar manner, so that movement of his body was al-
most impossible. All the knots were a peculiar kind of sailor
knots, and entirely beyond reach of the boy's hands or mouth.

" The other Davenport boy was tied in a similar way by an-
other member of the committee. After being tied, 1 carefully
examined every knot, and particularly noticed the method in
which he was bound. The knots were all beyond the reach of
his hands or mouth. He was as securely bound as the other,
the only difference being that the ropes were not as tight around
the wrists. This one, as the other, was tied to his seat; the
ropes being passed through the holes, and tied underneath to
the ropes attached to his legs. Thus fastened, one at one end
of the box and one at the other, they were beyond each other's
reach.

" Thus far I was perfectly satisfied of three things, ist. There
was in the box no person except the boys, bound as above de-
scribed ; 2d, It was physically impossible for the boys to liberate
themselves; 3d, There was introduced into the box nothing
whatever besides the boys, and the ropes with which they were
bound.

"These being the conditions, the right-hand door was glosed\

PLANCHETTE,

then the left-hand door; and finally the middle door was
closed. At the same time the gas-lights were lowered, so that
it was twilight in the room. Within ten seconds, two hands
were seen by the committee and by the audience, at an opening
near the top of the middle door; and, one minute after, the
doors opened of their own accord, and the boy bound so tightly
walked out unbound, the ropes lying on the floor, every knot
being untied. The other boy had not been released ; and a care-
ful examination showed every knot and every rope to be in the
precise place in which the committee left it.

"The doors being closed as before, with nothing in the box
besides one of the boys, bound as described, hand and foot, with
all the knots beyond the reach of his hands or mouth, in less
than one minute they opened without visible cause; and the
boy walked out unbound, every knot being untied.

" b. The box being again carefully examined, and found to
contain nothing but the seats, the boys were placed in them
unbound, one seated at one end and one at another. Be-
tween them on the floor was thrown a large bundle of ropes.
The doors were then closed. In less than two minutes, they
opened as before ; and the boys were bound hand and foot in
their seats. The committee examined the knots and the ar-
rangements of the ropes, and declared them more securely
bound than when they had tied them themselves. I then made
a careful examination of the manner in which they were tied,
and found as follows : viz., a rope was tightly passed around
each wrist and tied, the hands being behind the back; the ends
were then drawn through the holes in the seat, and tied under-
neath, drawing the hands firmly down on the seat. A second
rope was passed several times around both legs and firmly tied,
binding the legs together. A third rope was tied to the legs and
then fastened to the middle of the back side of the box. A
fourth rope was also attached to the legs and drawn backward,
and tied to the ropes underneath the seat, which bound the
hands. This last rope was so tightened as to take the slack out
of the others. Every rope was tight ; and no movement of the

DR. LOOMIS'S TESTIMONY.

body could make any rope slacken. They were tied precisely
alike. I also examined the precise points where the ropes
passed over the wrists, measuring from the processes of ^the
radial, ulnar, and metacarpal bones. I also carefully ar-
ranged the ends of the ropes in a peculiar manner. This
arrangement was out of reach and out of sight of the boys,
and unknown to any one but myself. The examination being
ended, the following facts were apparent: ist, There was
no one in the box with the boys; 2d, There was no thing
in the box with the boys except the ropes; 3d, It was physi-'
cally impossible for the boys to have tied themselves, every one
of the knots being beyond the reach of their hands or mouths,
and the boys being four feet apart ; 4th, The time elapsing from
the closing of the doors to their opening — less than two minutes
by the watch — was altogether too short for any known physical
power to have tied the ropes as they were tied.

** c. The boys being tied in this manner, one of the committee
was requested to shut the doors. He stepped forward, closed
the right-hand door, also the left-hand door, and was about
closing the middle door, when two hands came out of the box,
one of which hit him a severe blow on the right shoulder. The
committee-man was partly in the box and felt the blow, but did
"not know what struck him. He immediately threw open the
doors; but nothing could be found but the boys, tied as before.
I carefully re-examined the positions of the ropes, and found
them as I had left them. The hands were seen by the audience
distinctly. The lights had not been turned down ; and the hands
were seen in the plain gas-light, and remained in sight several
seconds. Having satisfied myself of the reality of the hands,
having seen the blow given by one of them, which was sufficient
to turn the committee-man partly round, I examined them with
reference to their position in relation to the boys anatomically
considered. The middle door had not been closed, and the
committee-man had not left the box ; both boys were firmly tied
to their seats, and the gas was fully lighted. The hand that
appeared to the left of the committee-man might have been.^ so

PLANCHETTE.

far as position and anatomical relation were concerned, the right
hand of the boy at the left side of the box; but the hand that
struck the man could not have belonged to either boy. • It was
more than four feet from either one, and at least two feet high ;
and, had either boy been sufficiently near, it must have been a
right hand on a left arm.

" d. The box was then carefully examined again ; and noth-
ing could be found except the boys, bound as described before.
There were then placed on the floor, between the boys, a bell,
a violin, a guitar, a tambourine, and a trumpet. This being
done, the left door was closed, then the right door ; and, ai the
committee-man was closing the middle door, the brass trumpet,
weighing about two pounds, jumped up from the floor, struck
the top of the box with great force, and fell out on the -floor.
This took place while the committee-man stood facing the box.
The door was wide open ; and the committee-man stood $)artly
in the box. The boys were again carefully examined, and found
to be tied as at first. I examined the ropes that I had carefully
and privately arranged, as before described, and found them as
I had left them.

"e. The trumpet was placed back, and all the doors closed.
Within ten seconds the violin was tuned and began to play ; at
the same time the guitar, tambourine, and bell began to play,
all joining in the same tune. Part of the time the bell was
thrust out of the window in the upper part of the middle door,
by an arm, and played in sight of the audience. While the
music was being made, there were a multitude of raps, both light
and heavy, on all parts of the box. The first tune was played
and repeated ; and a few seconds of comparative quiet followed,
broken only by the instruments jumping about the box, and a
few raps. Soon a second tune was begun, in which all the in-
struments joined as before. In the midst of this tune, the doors
suddenly opened themselves ; and the instruments tumbled about,
some one way, some another ; and part fell out on the floor. The
time between the stopping of the music and the opening of the
door was not a single second. I went at once to the box and

PROFESSOR MAPES'S EXPERIENCES.

found both boys bound, hand and foot, as I had left them. I
examined the ropes particularly about the wrists, and found
them in the precise position in which I had left them, measuring
from the processes of the radial, ulnar, and metacarpal bones.
I also found the ends of the ropes under the seats, which I had,
as previously described, privately arranged in a peculiar man-
ner, in precisely the same position as I had left them."

The late Professor Mapes, well known for his scientific attain-
ments, described an exhibition witnessed by him through the
Davenport Boys. These boys permitted themselves to be bound
by cords, hand and foot, in any way the operator pleased ; and
in an instant they were liberated by the supposed spirits. The
spirit of one Tohn King claimed to be the chief actor of their
band. With this spirit Professor Mapes said he conversed for
half an hour. The voice was loud and distinct, spoken through
a trumpet. He shook hands with him, the spirit giving a most
powerful grasp ; then taking his hand again, it was increased in
size and covered 'with hair. The professor said he went, accom-
panied only by his friends, among whom were Dr. Warren and
Dr. Wilson. They had a jocular sort of evening, into which
King entered heartily, and at length played them a trick, for
which they were not prepared, and which rather astonished
them. Their hats and caps were suddenly whisked from their
heads, and replaced in an instant. Turning o;i the lights, they
found each hat and cap was turned inside out; and it took many
minutes to replace them. Dr. Warren*s gloves, which were in
his hat, were also turned completely inside out. This exhibi-
tion took place in a large club-room at Buffalo, selected by the
professor and his party, having but one place of entrance and
exit. The boys sat on an elevated platform at a large table;
and this table, in an instant of time, was carried over the heads
of the auditors, and deposited at the most distant part of this
large room.

It is unnecessary to multiply descriptions of the phenomena.
After giving exhibitions in the principal cities of the United
States, in the latter part of 1864, the Davenport Brothers went

PLANCHKTTK.

to England. Here their reception was of rather a mixed char-
acter. By some they were denounced or mobbed ; by others they
were treated with the attention which was due to the extraor-
dinary manifestations produced in their presence. They were
accompanied by Mr. William Fay, himself the medium for some
inexplicable specimens of modern thaumaturgy.

Captain Richard F. Burton, the African traveller, in a letter,
dated Nov. lo, 1864, gives a detailed description of a sitting with
the brothers at his own lodgings. He says, "Mr. Fay*s coat^
was removed whilst he was securely fastened, hand and foot;
and a lucifer match was struck at the same instant, showing us
the two gentlemen fast bound, and the coat in the air on its way
to* the other side of the room. Under precisely similar circum-
stances, the coat of another gentleman present was placed upon
him.

" I have spent a g^reat part of my life in Oriental lands, and
have seen there many magicians. Lately, I have been permitted
to see and be present at the performances of Messrs. Anderson
and Tolmaque. The latter showed, as they profess, clever con-
juring; but they do not even attempt what the Messrs. Daven-
port and Fay succeed in doing, — for instance, the beautiful man-
agement of the musical instruments. Finally, I have read and
listened to every explanation of the Davenport * tricks' hitherto
placed before the English public ; and, believe me, if any thing
would make me take that tremendous jump *from matter to
spirit,* it is the utter and complete unreason of the reasons by
which the manifestations are explained."

In France the Davenports were well received by the emperor ;
but a great clamor was raised against them by the press, an^ the
unbelievers generally. Two experts, however, in the art of
legerdemain, in Paris, — namely, M. Hamilton, a professor of the
art, and M. Rhys, a manufacturer of conjuring implements, —
fully exonerated, in published letters, the brothers from all sus-
picion of trick. M. Rhys is the maker of all the articles used by
the well-known Robert Houdin, who is himself the inventor and
originator of almost the whole of the tricks performed by the

THE DAVENPORTS IN FRANCE.

less accomplished jugglers, and who declared some time since
that nothing in the magic art could account for the so-called
spiritual phenomena which he had witnessed. The letters al-
luded to were published in the " Gazette des Etrangers " in Paris,
on the 27th of September, 1865, and are as follows : —

" Messrs. Davenport, — Yesterday I had the pleasure of being
present at the stance you gave ; and I came away from it con-
vinced that jealousy alone was the cause of the outcry raised
against you. The phenomena produced surpassed my expecta-
tions ; and your experiments were full of interest for me. I con-
sider it my duty to add that those phenomena are inexplicable,
and the more so by such persons as have thought themselves
able to guess your supposed secret, and who are, in fact, far
indeed from having discovered the truth. Hamilton."

"Messrs. Davenport, — I have returned from one of your
sdances quite astonished. Like all other persons, I was admitted
to examine your cabinet and instruments. I went through that
examination with the greatest care, but failed to discover any
thing that could justify legitimate suspicions. From that mo-
ment, I felt that the insinuations cast about' you were but false
and malevolent. I must also declare that, your cabinet being
completely isolated, all participation in the manifestation of
your phenomena by strangers is absolutely impossible ; that the
knots are made by persons selected indiscriminately, and that
the public has been admitted to watch them; and I shall add
that, under these conditions, no one has ever yet produced any
thing similar to the phenomena I witnessed. Rhys."

The Davenports met with great success in Belgium, where the
press treated them with unwonted candor and fairness. In St.
Petersburg, they gave private siances before the emperor and
the nobility, and were received with much attention.

On the nth of April, 1868, they re-appeared in London, and
drew a crowded audience. Their powers had not diminished.
A gentleman who was present writes, "In the cabinet exhibi-

PLANCHETTE.

tion, hands, life-like in form and texture, were frequently seen
before the doors were closed ; and from the aperture two long,
naked, femininely formed arms, and also a group of not less than
five hands of various sizes, were protruded at the same instant."

Mr. Benjamin Coleman, of London, a gentleman personally
known to us, and who has been an indefatigable investigator of
the phenomena for many years, writes, under date of May, 1868,
of the Messrs. Davenport and Mr. William Fay, "I desire to
convey to those of my friends in America, who introduced them
to me, the assurance of my conviction that the Brothers' mission
to Europe has been of great service to Spiritualism. ... I have
had no reason whatever to change my opinion of the genuine
and marvellous character of their mediumship, which is entirely
free from the imputation of trickery and bad faith of any kind."

Mr. Robert Cooper, of London, a sincere and disinterested
investigator, and who accompanied the Davenports to Ireland,
Scotland, Belgium, and Germany, solely in the pursuit of truth,
writes as follows: "I have been intimately associated with the
Davenports for seven months. I have witnessed the manifesta-
tions under a variety of circumstances, — in the dark and in the
light, in public and in private, — and I have never seen any in-
dication whatever of the slightest approach to trickery. On the
contrary, I have seen much to convince me of the absence of
any thing of the kind. For instance, I have seen lights struck,
contrary to regulations, when the instruments were sounding
and floating in the air; but no one was discovered out of his
place, the only result being the falling of the guitars to the
ground.

"At Brussels, at a stance before the first literary society of the
town, blue paint was placed on the instruments unknown to
any of us; but, though the instruments were all played on, uo
trace of the paint was found on the hands of the brothers. At
Antwerp, at the conclusion of the cabinet sdance, a gentleman
exhibited his hand covered with some black composition of a
greasy nature. He said he had caught hold of the hands that
appeared at the cabinet window, and fully expected, when the

THE STRATFORD PHENOMENA.

Davenports came from the cabinet, to find their hands blackened,
but, to his great surprise, such was not the case. I have also
known black composition placed on the hands of the brothers
during the dark sdance, with the idea that the instruments would
show traces of the pigment; but such was not the case. None
of our party knew of these experiments being made till the ter-
mination of the sdances."

Mr. Cooper has heard the " spirits " speak in an audible voice,
and has held long conversations with them. He says, "It is
obviously impossible for any one to be with the Davenports, as
I have been, and not discover fraud, if any existed. I could
multiply proofs in favor of the genuineness of these manifesta-
tions. If they are not a reality, then all creation is a myth, and
our senses are nothing worth."

The occurrences in the family of the Rev. Dr. Phelps, of Strat-
ford, Conn., which took place not long after the manifestations
through the Fox family (1848-9), are of a character strictly
analogous to those that were established as true, so far as
human testimony can establish any thing, in the days of witch-
craft.

For seven months, the phenomena were of the most unac-
countable character. We took the pains to write to Dr. Phelps
at the time, and have from him a letter confirming the facts in
every particular. On returning one day from church, the family
found the doors of rooms, which had been carefully locked, all
thrown open ; and the furniture tossed about in the utmost con-
fusion. In one room were from eight to ten figures formed with
articles of clothing, and arranged with singular skill. They
were all kneeling, and each with an open Bible before it, as if in
mockery of their own church-going. Nothing was missing. The
family locked the door of this room, but only to find, on open-
ing it again, the number of figures increased, and that with
articles of dress which three minutes before they had seen in
other {Virts of the house. Heavy tables were lifted up and let
down again, strange noises were heard; and a boy of eleven
years of • age was lifted up and carried across the room. His

PLANCHETTE.

clothes were carried away, and only discovered after a long and
patient search. He was sent from home to a distant school,
but had to be recalled, as his clothes there were cut to pieces
repeatedly in a most extraordinary manner. The panes in the
windows used to fly to pieces as Dr. Phelps and others stood
looking at them.

In his letter, Dr. Phelps writes, "I have seen things in motion
above a thousand times; and, in most cases, where no visible
power existed by which the motion could be produced. There
have been broken from my windows more than seventy-one
panes of glass, more than thirty of which I have seen broken
before my own eyes."

About the year 1850, the Hon. James F. Simmons, of Rhode
Island, a well-known member of the United-States Senate, was
the witness of some remarkable phenomena. In the autumn of
1852, Mr. Horace Greeley,* editor of the "New-York Tribune,"
received a letter which he published in his paper, with the fol-
lowing introduction: "The writer has received the following
letter from Mrs. Sarah H. Whitman, in reply to one of inquiry
from him as to her own experience in * Spiritualism,' and espe-
cially with regard to a remarkable * experience,' currently re-
ported as having occurred to Hon. James F. Simmons, late
United-States Senator from Rhode Island, and widely known as
one of the keenest and clearest observers, most unlikely to be

• In his "Recollections of a Busy Life" (i868), Mr. Greeley admits that "the
jugglery hypothesis utterly fails to account for occurrences which I have personally
witnessed," and that "certain developments strongly indicate that they do proceed
from departed spirits." But he complains that nothing of any value is obtained by
the investigation; that the spirits "did not help to fish up the Atlantic cable nor
find Sir John Franklin ; " that Spiritualism has not made the body of believers " bet-
ter men and women." Much the same kind of objection might be brought against
the Copemican theory of ihe universe. Mr. Greeley admits that the phenomena may
enable us "to answer with more confidence that old momentous question, If a man
die, shall he live again?" Did it never occur to Mr. G. that this is something ; a
trifle, perhaps, compared with fishing up an old cable, but still something?* We fear
that Mr. G.'s life has been too "busy" to enable him to give to these matters the
reflection they require.

SENATOR SIMMONS'S EXPERIENCES.

the dupe of mystery or the slave of hallucination. Mrs. Whit-
man's social and intellectual eminence are not so widely known ;
but there are very many who know that her statement needs no
confirmation whatever." Here is her letter ; —

"Dear Sir, — I have had no conversation with Mr. Simmons
on the subject of your note until to-day. I took an early oppor-
tunity of acquainting him with its contents ; and this morning \
he called on me to say that he was perfectly willing to impart to
you the particulars of his experience in relation to the myste-
rious writing performed under his very eyes, in broad daylight^
by an invisible agent,

"In the fall of 1850, several messages were telegraphed to \
Mrs. Simmons through the electric sounds, purporting to come
from her step-son, James D. Simmons, who died some weeks
before in California. The messages were calculated to stimu-
late curiosity, and lead to an observation of the phenomena.
Mrs. Simmons, having heard that messages in the handwriting
of deceased persons were sometimes written through the same
medium, asked if her son would give her this evidence. She
was informed, through the sounds, that the attempt should be
made, and was directed to place a slip of paper in a certain
drawer at the house of the medium, and to lay beside it her own
pencil, which had been given her by the deceased. Weeks
passed ; and, although frequent inquiries were made, no writing
was found on the paper.

" Mrs. Simmons happening to call at the house one day, ac-
companied by her husband, made the usual inquiry and received
the usual answer. The drawer had been opened not two hours
before, and nothing was seen in it but the pencil lying on the
blank paper. At the suggestion of Mrs. Simmons, however,
another investigation was made ; and on the paper were found a
few pencil lines, resembling the handwriting of the deceased,
but not so closely as to satisfy the mother's doubts. Mrs. Sim-
mons handed the paper to her husband : he thought there was a
slight resemblance, but would probably not have remarked it

PLANCHETTE.

had the writing been casually presented to him. Had the signa-
ture been given him, he should at once have decided on the
resemblance. He proposed, if the spirit of his son were indeed
present, as alphabetical communications received through the
sounds affirmed him to be, that he should, then and there, affix
his signature to the suspicious document.

"In order to facilitate the operation, Mrs. Simmons placed
the closed points of a pair of scissors in the hand of the medium
and dropped her pencil through one of the rings or bows, the
paper being placed beneath. The hand presently began to trem-
ble ; and it was with difficulty it could retain its hold of the scis-
sors. Mr. Simmons then took the scissors into his own hand,
and dropped the pencil through the ring. It could not readily
be sustained in this position. After a few moments, however, it
stood as if firmly poised and perfectly still. It then began slowly
to move, Mr. Simmons saw the letters traced beneath his eyes.
The words, James D. Simmons, were distinctly and deliberately
written ; and the handwriting was a facsimile of his son^s sig-
nature.

"But what Mr. Simmons regards as the most astonishing part
of this seeming miracle is yet to be told. Bending down to
scrutinize the writing more closely, he observed, just as the last
word was finished, that the top of the pencil leaned to the right.
He thought it was about to slide through the ring ; but, to his
infinite surprise, he saw the point slide slowly back along the
word * Simmons,* till it rested over the letter i, when it imprinted
a dot. This was a punctilio utterly unthought of by him. He
had not noticed the omission, and was therefore entirely unpre-
pared for the amendment. He suggested the experiment, and
he thinks it had kept pace only with his will or desire. But how
will those who deny the agency of disembodied spirits in these
marvels, ascribing all to the unassisted powers of the human
will, or to the blind action of electricity, — how will they dispose
of this last significant and curious fact?

"The only peculiarity observable in the writing was that the
lines seemed sometimes slightly broken, as if the pencil had
been lifted, then set down again.

cm* BONO?

" One other circumstance I am permitted to note, which is not
readily to be accounted for on any other than spiritual agency.
Mr. Simmons, -who received no particulars of his son*s death
until several months after his decease, proposing to send for his
remains, questioned the spirit as to the manner in which the
body had been disposed of, and received a very minute and cir-
cumstantial account of the means which had been resorted
to for its preservation, it being at the time unburied. Improba-
ble as some of these statements seemed, they were, after an
interval of four months, confirmed as literally true by a gentle-
man then recently returned from California, who was with
young Simmons at the period of his death. Intending soon
to return to California, he called on Mr. Simmons to learn his
wishes in relation to the final disposition of his son's remains.
The above particulars I took down in writing, by the permission
of Mr. Simmons, during his relation of the facts."

In the "British Standard," of Aug. 14, 1863, Dr. Campbell
remarks of these and similar phenomena, "The conclusion of
the whole, matter is this : we believe in the existence of angels
and of devils, in the existence of the spirits of men both good
and bad; we believe that all are capable of acting in their
disembodied state on the minds of men still in the flesh; we
believe in the possibility of intercourse between man and these
disembodied intelligences, whether good or bad ; we believe, on
the authority of Scripture, that spirits are capable of entering
human bodies, of speaking through thepi and acting in them ;
and hence we believe in the possibility of spirits operating on
matter in the way of rapping out the letters of the alphabet, or
in the way of writing with the pencil. We see nothing in Scrip-
ture or in the nature of the case that militates against these
conclusions. All that we require is proof, indubitable, sensible
proof, from our own eyes and ears. On that condition, we at
once g^ve full credence."

To the question often put by the inconsiderate, in regard to
the phenomena, "What good have they all done? — What's the

PLANCH KTTE.

use of them all?" Dr. Campbell replies, "We are sometimes
met with the question cui bono f We deny our obligation, as a
condition of rational faith, to prove the cui bono. It may exist
where we see it not, and have important ends to accomplish
with which we are unacquainted."

Dr. Campbell relates some singular occurrences in his own
experience, and concludes, "Explanation of such phenomena
we have none to offer; but we stand by the facts as here stated."

It is astonishing how often this cui bono interrogatory is put
by persons who ought to see how a little reflection would silence
them. Once when Dr. Franklin was asked in regard to some
discovery, "What's the use of it.^" he retorted by saying,
"What's the use of a new-born baby?" And as for that matter,
it might be asked, " What's the use of any thing? "

"I do not see that people have been made better men and
women by these things," says a popular editor, in reference to
the spiritual phenomena, the genuineness of which he admits.
And by a superficial thinker, the remark will be taken as sound
common sense, and as settling the whole question of their im-
portance.

But you will observe that precisely the same objection might
be brought against the discoveries of Copernicus, of Newton,
and even of Morse and Fulton. Have people been made better
men and women by the theory of gravitation, by the steamboat,
the railroad, and the electric telegraph ? Indeed have the print-
ing-press and the photographic art been exclusively servants in
the cause of morality? Such questions, if not always put in the
spirit of " the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind," certainly
indicate rather a narrow view of the great facts of existence.

CHAPTER III.

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH MISS KATE FOX.

"•fhe spiritual world

Lies all about us, and its avenues

Ate ot>en to the unseen feet of phantoms

That come and go, and we perceive them not,

Save by their influence, or when at times

A most mysterious Providence permits them

To manifest themselves to mortal eyes." — Longfellow,

WE come now to a narrative of phenomena so remarkable
that they will probably excite many an exclamation of
incredulity, although the authority on which they rest is above
suspicion.

We have already had occasion to quote the testimony of Dr.
John F. Gray, of New York. He was one of the earliest and
most persevering investigators of the Hydesville phenomena.
To us he has been personally known for more than a quarter of »
a century ; and he is well known to a large circle of intelligent
patients in the great city where he has had a lucrative profes-
sional practice until, a few years ago, he retired from active
occupation. " .

Dr. Gray accepts the spiritual hypothesis as the only one
covering all the phenomena he has witnessed. His reasons for I
believing that spirits communicate with men in *he body are '
thus stated in a succinct summary of the results that have come
to his kno^^dge during the last twenty years : —

" I. PJtenomena of a physical nature not referable to the laws
of physical relation ; such as the moving of ponderable bodies,
independent of earthly mechanics ; the production of a great
variety of sounds, also independent of any known or cotice.v<<*

PLANCHETTE.

able mechanical apparatus ; the production of lights of various
colors, sizes, shapes, degrees of brilliancy, and duration of in-
candescence, in every case without the presence of any chemical
agents or apparatus known to or usable by man ; and, lastly, the
reproduction of living material bodies,, thrmgh which extempo- *
raneous, but real and tangible physical organizations, the spirits
have re-appeared to their friends on earth, expressing their pecu-
liarities of physical form and movement, and likewise their
peculiar and distinctive modes of apprehension, feeling, and
intellection. Through these temporarily organized effigies of
their former earth-bodies, they have (as I know from several
instances of recent date) spoken to and sung with their relatives
here, and have given many other equally palpable proofs of their
ability to reconstruct and inhabit a physical form.

** II. Phenomena of a mental nature not referable to earthly
volition and intelligence ; such as the contrivance and produc-
tion of the physical phenomena above cited ; the production of
writings in various ancient and modern languages, wholly un-
known to those in whose presence they have been executed ; the
utterance of prophecy; the narration of events, and the recital
of mental facts that are transpiring in distant places, often
across broad oceans; the improvisation and incredibly rapid
production of symbolic drawings and elaborate pictures by per-
sons not versed in the pictorial art, and unable to explain the
symbols they have executed and combined in such a way as to
convey a good lesson of life, or renew a long-buried personal
reminiscence; lastly, the felicitous and accurate impersonation
of persons long departed this life, and who were wholly un-
known to and unheard of by the personators.

"The philosophy of spirit-intercourse sheds a mellow light
over human history and human science. It founds a positive
psychology, and teaches where to look for wellsprings of invenr
tion and progress ; and it reconciles us to the hard ministry of
sin and sorrow, of ignorance and suffering."

In j860j Mr. . , an opulent and well-known

banker of New York (formerly of the firm of L &

MR. U 'S NARRATIVE.

. . . . , but now retired from business), lost his wife, to whom .
he had been much attached, and who had been attended during
her last illness by Dr. John F. Gray, an old friend of the hus-
band. Mr. L . . . . , an inveterate skeptic, was now induced j
by Dr. G. to call on Miss Kate Fox, the young woman through \
whose quick-wittedness these rapping phenomena were origin-
ally interrogated and developed at Hydesville.

In February, 1861, Mr. L. accordingly had a sitting with Miss I
Fox; and the result was an entire change in his views concern-
ing life and death.

At a small gathering of inquirers at which our friend, Mr.
Benjamin Coleman, of London, was present, in i86i, Dr. Gray
read the following extraordinary account by Mr. L ..... of
the manifestations which Mr. L. obtained through Miss Fox.
After describing the precautions he took to prevent the possibil-
ity of deception, Mr. L. proceeds as follows : —

"The lights being extinguished, footsteps were heard as of
persons walking in thieir stocking-feet, accompanied by the
rustling sound of a silk dress. It was then rapped out by the
alphabet, * My dear, I am here in form ; do not speak.' A glob-
ular light rose up from the floor behind me ; and, as it became
brighter, a face, surmounted by a crown, was distinctly seen by
the medium and myself. Next, the head appeared, as if covered
with a white veil : this was withdrawn after the figure had risen
some feet higher; and I recognized unmistakably the full head
and face of my wife, surrounded by a semi-circle of light about
eighteen inches in diameter. The recognition was complete,
derived alike from the features and her natural expression. The
globe of light was then raised, and a female hand held before it
was distinctly visible. Each of these manifestations was re-
peated several times, as if to leave no doubt in our minds. Now
the figure, coming lower down and turning its head, displayed,
falling over the globe of light, long flowing hair , which, even in
its shade of color, appeared like the natural tresses of my wife,
and like hers was unusually luxuriant. This whole mass of hair
was whisked in our faces many times, conveying the same sen.%«c-

PLANCHETTE.

tions as if it had been actually human natural hair. This also
was frequently repeated, and the hair shown to us in a variety of
ways. The light and the rustling sound then passed round the
table and approached me, and what seemed to the touch a skirt
of muslin was thrown over my head, and a hand was felt as if
holding it there. A whisper was now heard; and the words,
* Sing, sing,* were audibly pronounced. I hummed an air, and
asked, *Do you like that?' *Yes, yes,* was plainly spoken in a
whisper; and in both cases I recognized distinctly the voice of
my wife, to which I had become sensitively familiarized during
her last illness, when she had become too weak to talk aloud.'*

At another sitting, a few days after, the same precautions and
conditions being observed, the following phenomena were wit-
nessed : —

" The table was lifted from the floor, the door violently shaken,
the window-sash raised and shut several times; and, in fact,
every thing movable in the room seemed in motion.

" Questions were replied to by loud knocks on the door, on the
window, ceiling, table, everywhere ; all being the work of several
powerful spirits, who were present, and whose presence was
necessary, as it was afterwards explained, to support or induce
the manifestations of a more beautiful and interesting char-
acter.

"An illuminated substance, like gauze, rose from the floor be-
hind us, accompanied by a rustling sound, like that of a silk dress.
The previously described electrical rattle became very loud and
vigorous. The figure of a female passed round the table, and,
approaching us, touched me. The gauzy substance was shaped
as though covering a human head, and seemed as if drawn down
tight at the neck. Upon close examination, as it approached
near me a second time, it changed its form, and now seemed in
folds over a melon-shaped oblong, concave on one side ; and in
this cavity there appeared an intensified brilliant light. By raps,
I was requested to look beyond the light. I looked as directed,
and saw the appearance of a human eye. Again receding with
the rattle, the light became still brighter; and then, re-approach-

MR. L

'S NARRATIVE.

ing, the gauze, which had changed in form, was grasped by a
naturally-formed female hand ; and unfolding, revealed to me,
with a thrill of indescribable happiness, the upper half of the face
of my wifey the eyes, forehead, and expression in perfection.
The moment the emotion of recognition had passed into my
mind, it was acknowledged by a succession of quick raps.

"The figure disappeared and re-appeared several timesj the
recognition becoming each time more nearly perfect, with an ex-
pression of calm and beautiful serenity. I asked her to kiss me
if she could ; and, to my great astonishment and delight, an arm
was placed around my neck, and a real palpable kiss was im-
planted on my lips, through something like fine muslin. A head
was laid upon mine, the hair falling luxuriantly down my face.
^ The kiss was frequently repeated, and was audible in every part
of the room. The light then moved to a point about midway
between us and the wall, which was distant about ten feet. The
rattling increased in vigor ; and the light, gradually illuminating
that side of the room, lirought out in perfection an entire female
figure facing the wall, and holding the light in her outstretched
hand, shaking it at intervals, as the light grew dim. My name
and her name were repeated in a loud whisper; and among
other things which occurred during this remarkable sitting,
the figure at the close stood before the mirror, and was reflected
therein"

The incidents of another evening were thus described : " The
lights and electrical rattle were as strong as on the previous oc-
casions. Hands were placed upon my forehead, a head placed
upon mine, the hair, as before, falling down my face into my
hand. I grasped it, and found it positively and unmistakably
human hair. It was afterwards whisked playfully at me, creat-
ing as much wind as an ordinary fan. The spiritual robe was
then dropped over my head and face, as real and material in
substance as cotton or muslin of a very fine texture. At one
time, the globe of light extended to about two feet in diameter.
At last, it was shaken with another sharp rattle ; and, shining
brightly, revealed again the full head and face of my ^^fe^«s^x>3

PLANCHETTK.

feature in perfection, but spiritualized in shadowy beauty such
as no imagination can conceive, or pen describe. In her hair,
just above the left temple, was a single white rose, the hair being
arranged with great care. The next appearance, after a brief
interval, revealed the same face, with a pink rose instead of a
white one. The whole head and face were shown to us, at leust
twenty times during the sitting, and each time was recognized
by me, the perfection of the recognition being in proportion to
the brilliancy of the light. During the whole of these manifes-
tations, cards of a large size, provided by myself, were placed on
the floor, with a pencil ; and long messages were found to have
been written upon them," &c.

Dr. Gray, in conclusion, said, "These manifestations could
not have been produced by human means ; and if you admit the
competency of the witness, of which, from my knowledge of him,
I have no doubt,, they are, in my opinion, conclusive evidence of
spirit identity."

Several persons in the assembly rose to ask questions of Dr.
Gray, respecting this very startling narrative ; and one gentre-
man said, he really could not, though a believer in Spiritualism,
receive such statements without great misgivings of delusion
being mixed up with them. "Now," he said, "I put it to you,
Dr. Gray, Do you believe that such things can and did occur?"
Dr. Gray replied very calmly, "Yes, my friend; I believe as
implicitly every word of those narratives as I do in my own
existence."

Previous to leaving New York, Mr. Coleman made a special
visit to Miss Kate Fox, the medium for these wonders ; and she
fully corroborated all that Mr. L had told him.

Of Miss Kate Fox, Dr. Gray writes : " She has been intimately
known to my wife and me from the time she was a very young
gir^l; that is to say, from 1850 to this date [1861]. At that early
day in the history of the manifestations, she was frequently a
visitor in my family ; and then, through that child alone, with-
out the possibility of trick from collusion with others, or, I may
truly add, of imposture of any kind, all the various phenomena

DR. gray's testimony.

recorded by friend L., except the reproduction of visible human
forms, were witnessed by Mrs. Gray and myself, and many other
relatives and friends of our family. Among these I may men-
tion, as frequent, attentive, and very able observers, the late Dr.
Gerald Hull,* my brother-in-law; and Dr. Warner, my son-in-
law. Miss Fox is a young lady of good education, and of an
entirely blameless life and character."

Of Mr. L . . . . , Dr. Gray says, " Besides his general char-
acter for veracity and probity, Mr. L. is a competent witness to
the important facts he narrates, because he is not in any degree
subject to the illusions and hallucinations which may be sup-
posed to attach to the trance or ecstatic condition. I have
known him from his very early manhood, and am his medical
adviser. He is less liable to be misled by errors of his organs
of sense than almost any man of my large circle of patients and
acquaintancer"

Mr. L is of opinion that the electrical conditions,

both of the atmosphere and of the persons receiving manifes-
tations, are even more important and subtle than mental con-
ditions. He says of himself, ** My condition has always been
highly electrical. I find no difficulty in lighting gas by applying
the end of my finger to the burner, after having excited the elec-
tricity of my system, by friction of my feet on the carpet. This,
however, is not an uncommon occurrence here ; though I have
repeatedly tried it in England without success."

"You ask if I believe all the manifestations are from one
spirit. Most certainly not; for it has been repeatedly explained,
and I think proved, that the spirit made itself visible to me
through the powerful aid of other spirits."

Cards were written on, in a very neat small hand, exactly like
the natural handwriting of "Estelle," the wife, when in the
flesh. Facsimiles of two of these cards, the one purporting to

* Dr. Hull, who was universally respected and beloved, both as a physician and a
friend, has often corroborated to us, personally, the most remarkable of the facts to
which Dr. G. bears witness.

PLANCHETTE.

be written by the spirit of Mr. L.*8 wife, and the other by the
" spirit of Benjamin Franklin," are published in the " London
Spiritual Magazine," of November, 1861.

A spirit, assuming to be Franklin, was afterwards repeatedly

visible. In a letter, dated Nov. 23, 1861, Mr. L writes :

"I now aver, that no doubt of the identity* of the spirit longer
remains upon my mind. His appearance [the same on several
occasions] corresponds with the original portrait of the philoso-
pher ; the difference being simply that which one would expect
to find between a painting and a face replete with life and ex-
pression. His presence was a wonderful and startling reality,
seated in the chair opposite me at the table, vividly visible, and
even to each article of dress. There could be no mistake."

This eidolon of Franklin, as well as that of Estelle, was after-
wards seen by the brother-in-law of Mr. L . . . . , and by Dr.
Gray. The following are extracts, taken somewhat at random
from Mr. L . . • . 's spiritual diary, of 1861-1863 : —

Aug. 18, 1861, 8 P.M. — Present, the medium and myself.
Atmosphere heavy and warm. Carefully examined the room,
locked the door, took the key, and made all secure. Sat in quiet
half an hour, when a spherical oblong light, enveloped in folds,
rose from the floor to our foreheads, and rested upon the table in
front. By raps, * Notice how noiselessly we come.* Hereto-
fore the light had generally appeared after a succession of
startling sounds and movements of movable objects; but in
the present instance all was quiet. From this time, 8.30, till
11.30, the light was constantly visible, but in diflferent forms.
It remained upon the table a full, half-hour, the size and shape

• If spirits have the power, attributed to them by many seers, of assuming any ap-
pearance at will, it is obvious that some high spiritual sense must be developed in us
before we can reasonably be sure of the idetUity of any spirit, even though it come
bearing the exact resemblance of the person it may claim to be. We think, therefore,
that the feet that the spirit, described by Mr. L., bore the aspect of Franklin, and called
itself Franklin, is no sufficient reason for dismissing all doubts as to its identity. It
may be, that we must be in a spiritual state before we can really be wisely confident of
the identity of any spirit

AN EXTRAORDINARY APPARITION.

of a large melon. As during this time it was passive, I asked if •
it could rise, whereupon it immediately brightened, flashed out,
and rising, seemed a living, breathing substance. By raps,
*This is our most important meeting; for it brings to our circle
two powerful spirits great and good.' The light became gradu-
ally more powerful, and so brilliant upon the side opposite us as
to illuminate that part of the room. It now rose from the table,
resting upon my head and shoulder; the drapery in the mean
time touching and falling upon our faces, with a peculiar scent
of violets. After resting upon, and pressing my head and shoul-
der ivith the weight of a lixnng head, it descended to the floor.
I was now satisfied that the purpose of this meeting was some
other than the appearance of the spidt of my wife. The light
now rose with increased brilliancy, showing a head upon which
was a white cap surrounded by a frill. Seeing no face, I asked
what this meant. The reply was by raps, 'As when I was ilL*
This was correct ; for it was to all appearances the peculiar cap
worn by my wife during her last illness. This having passed
away, the light appeared again very brilliantly, showing a crown
composed apparently of oak-leaves and flowers, a very, very
beautiful manifestation. I had brought with me on this occa-
sion some new cards of a larger size, diflferent from any before
used, and had placed upon two of them private marks. These I
put upon a book on the table. In a few minutes they were taken
from the book, and one of them appeared near the floor, sus-
pended three or four inches from the carpet, — I could not judge
accurately; but the light brightly showed the centre card and
radiated from each side to a distance of some three or four
inches; or, in other words, the card was the centre of a circle
of spirit-light of a foot in diameter; while an imperfectly-shaped
hand, holding my small silver pencil, was placed upon the card
and moved quietly across from left to right, as though writing,
and when finishing a line, it moved quickly back to recommence
another. We were not permitted to look at this very long at a
time, as our steady gaze disturbed the operating forces ; but it
remained more or less visible for nearly an hour. The full

PLANCHETTE.

formed hand was seen only a portion of the time ; but, during all
this time, a dark substance, rather smaller than the natural
hand, held the pencil, and continued to write. One side of the
card being finished, ive saw it reversed and the other pag-e com-
menced. This is satisfactory evidence of the reality of spirit-
writing, if any evidence can be satisfactory. There could have
been no possible deception here. I held the medium's hand :
the door was locked, and every precaution was taken by me as in
previous instances. The identical cards were returned subse-
quently, covered with the finest writing. . . .

Sept. 26, 1861. — . . . After five or six appearances of my
wife, the light rested upon the floor some ten feet distant from
me ; then, rising, it suddenly darted across the room backwards
and forwards, until, having gained sufficient power, it flashed
brightly upon the wall, and brought into relief the entire figure
of a large, heavy man, who stood before us. He was rather
below the medium height; but broad-shouldered, heavy, and
dressed in black, his back towards us, and his face not visible.
He appeared thus three times very perfectly, remaining in view
each time for about a minute. The moment his entire form was
discerned by us, rappings commenced simultaneously in all
parts of the room, which continued during the time he was in
sight, as if to express delight at the achievement of a new suc-
cess. On asking if the spirit we saw was that of Dr. Franklin,
we were answered in the affirmative by three heavy dull knocks
upon the floor, as though made by a heavy foot, which were
several times repeated. During this sitting, the spirit of my wife
approached, tapping me upon the shoulder, smoothing my hair,
and caressing me ; while her long" tresses, as natural as in life,
dropped over my face, %viih the peculiar scent of delicate, freshly
gathered violets, A new and very curious manifestation now
took place, showing us how the echoes were produced ; and there
was spelled q^t, * Darling, have you not been rewarded f ' The
light in producing these echoes or explosions assumed a lily
shape, nearly the size of my head, and so brilliant as to light
the entire surface of a table and the centre of the room, so that

MR. L

S NARRATIVE.

Miss Fox and I could see each other distinctly, as well as various
objects in the room. Then bounding up and down from the
surface of the table some twelve or eighteen inches, it struck the^
table, and, descending on my arm, produced the raps or echoes.

^'^ Friday Evenings Oct, 4, 1861. — A bouquet of flowers
was placed upon the mantel in a vase with water. As soon as
the gas was turned down, a movement was heard ; and we were
requested to * get a light.* Upon doing so, we found the flowers,
with the vase and other articles, had been removed from the
mantel to the table, which stood in the centre of the room. We
again extinguished the light, when immediately the heavy cur-
tains of the window were drawn aside, and raised and lowered
repeatedly, admitting the light from the street. Rustlings were
heard after an interval of quiet, with sounds as of persons walk-
ing in stocking-feet. A peculiar sound was produced by striking
against the wall, as though with a bag of keys or broken earthen-
ware. This same bag of keys, or whatever it might have been,
also seemed to be dropped from a height of several feet, and to
fall heavily upon the floor, while we were told to listen. Tre-
mendous concussions were then made upon the floor, jarring the
whole house. The spirits of my wife and Dr. Franklin came to
me in form at the same time, — he slapping me heavily upon the
back, while she gently patted me upon the head and shoulder.
The electrical rattle was now heard ; and the light increasing in
brilliancy disclosed to our view the full figure of a heavy man.
At my request, the figure * walked * across the floor, and appeared
many times in different positions with entire distinctness. My
wife now appeared in great vividness and beauty. Her figure
floated gracefully through the room, her white robes falling
back as she glided through the air, brushing away pencils^ cards,
tfc, as she passed over and swept across the table. This spirit-
robe was shown us in a variety of ways ; and the manifestation of
texture was exquisitely beautiful. We saw her plainly withdraw
her face behind it, pushing the robe forward while it swung in
the air. It was brought over the table, the light being placed
behind, so that it became transparent and gossamer like, as

PLANCHETTK.

though a breath of air would dissolve it. This was frequently
repeated, and the robe drawn across my head, as palpably as
though of material substance. Whenever it approached closely,
we discovered a peculiar scent of purity, like a very delicate per-
fume of newly gathered grass or violets.

" OcA 20, 1861. — This manifestation was a powerful one,
showing the whole figure of my wife, but not her face. She
stood before us enveloped in gossamer, her arm and hand as
perfect as in life, the arm bare from the shoulder, with the excep-
tion of the gossamer, which was so transparent that it was more
beautiful for being thus dressed. I asked to be touched ; when
she advanced, laid her arm across my forehead, and permitted
me to kiss it. I found it as large and as real in weight as a liv-
ing arm. At first it felt cold, then grew gradually warm. She
held up the little finger, and moved it characteristically; and
while we were looking at that, she let her hair fall loosely down
her back. The manifestation was concluded by her writing a
card, resting it upon my shoulder^ caressing me upon the head
and temple, and kissing me for good-night.

Nov. 3, 1861. — This evening, according to promise, my
wife came in full form, placing her arms completely around
my neck ; but the most remarkable and novel manifestation was
the production of perfume from spirit-flowers. Something, re-
sembling a veil in its contact, was thrown over my head ; and,
while it was resting there, spirit-flowers were placed at my nose,
exhaling the most exquisite perfume I have ever smelt. I asked
what this was ; and was told * My wreath of spirit-flowers.' At
my request the same was brought to the medium, who experi-
enced similar sensations. This was repeated probably a dozen
times, the perfume being as strong as that of tuberose, but en-
tirelj' different and far more exquisite.

" Sunday Evening-^ Nov. 10, 1861. — Immediately upon sitting
down, there was communicated by raps, ''No failure,* . . . My wife
tapped upon my shoulder, informing me that she should give all
her aid to Dr. Franklin, who now became visible, his face for the
first time being seen. The light was apparently held by ano£her

MR. L *S NARRATIVE. 67

figure enveloped in dark covering, from behind which the light
approached, shining full upon the face of Dr. Franklin, about
whose identity there can be no longer any doubt or mistake. I
should have recognized it anywhere as Dr. Franklin*s face, as I
have learned to know it from the original paintings I have seen of
him but the strong points of his character were manifest as no
painting could exhibit them. He was apparently dressed in a
white cravat, and a brown coat of the olden style ; his head was
very large, with gray hair behind his ears ; his face was radiant
with benignity, intelligence, and spirituality : while my wife's
was an angel face of shining beauty, spiritualized in its ex-
pression of serenity and happiness. His appearance was that
of a man full of years, of dignity, and of fatherly kindness, in
whom one could find counsel, affection, and wisdom. He came,
perhaps, a dozen times, and once or twice so near that his eyes
. -were seen full and clear. My wife appeared three times in white
robes and enveloped in flowers.

Monday Evening"^ Nov, 12, 1861. — Electric rattlings were
heard ; and the light becoming very vivid discovered to us Dr.
Franklin seated^ his whole figure and dress complete. Indeed, so
vivid was the light, and so real was the man sitting there, that
his shadow was thrown upon the wall as perfectly as though a
living human being were there, in his earth-form. His position
was one of ease and dignity, leaning back in the chair, with one
arm upon the table, occasionally bending forward in recognition
of us, his gray locks swinging in correspondence with the move-
ment. We closed our eyes by request. Upon opening them, he
was standing on the chair, his form towering above us like a
statue. Again he resumed his seat, the act being accompanied
by Foud rustlings, which attend each movement of the spirit. A
message from my wife informed me that a card would be visibly
handed to Dr. Franklin. During all these appearances, there
seemed to be two other forms or spirits assisting, one of whom
held the light. One of these enveloped figures approached Dr.
Franklin, and, extending an arm, held'a card directly before his
face, so that the card was distinctly visible, and then placed it

PLANCHETTE.

on his knee, and afterwards handed it to me. The power was
great, remaining vigorous during the evening; and Dr. Franklin,
• my silent companion, sat in his chair, my vis-a-vis, for an hour
and a quarter.

" Wednesday Evening, Nov, 21 yi^i, — . . . Something like a
handkerchief of transparent gossamer was brought ; and we were
told to look at the hand which now appeared under the gossamer,
as perfect a female hand as was ever created. I advanced my
own hand, when the spirit-hand was placed in it, grasping mine ;
and we again grasped hands with all the fervor of long-parted
friends, my wife in the spirit-land and mj'self here. The ex-
pression of love and tenderness thus given cannot be described ;
for it was a reality which lasted through nearly half an hour. I
examined carefully that spirit-hand, squeezed it, felt the knuckles,
joints, and nails, and kissed it, while it was constantly visible
to my sight. I took each finger separately in my hand, and ^
could discern no difference between it and a human hand, except
in temperature ; the spirit-hand being cold at first, and growing
warm. I wore a glove, however, and could not perhaps judge
accurately in all respects. At last * good-night ' was spelled out,'
by the spirit-hand tapping upon mine, and then for a parting
benediction, giving it a hearty shake. Nothing in all these
manifestations has been more real to me, or given me greater
pleasure, than thus receiving the kindly grasp of a hand dearer
to me than life, but which, according to the world's theory, has
long since with all its tenderness and life mouldered into the
dust of the earth.

Friday Evening, Nov, 29, 1861. — My brother and I and the
medium present. Conditions unfavorable. Heavy rain-storm.
Darkened the room, and immediately a spirit-light rose from
the floor. I put on my glove, and my brother did the same.
The light soon came in my hand, when I felt that it contained a
female hand. It was frequently placed in mine, and by me
grasped tightly, so that I felt every part of it, both the medium's
hands being" at the time held by me. The spirit of my brother's
deceased child also placed his hand in mine ; and a large man's

MR. L

'S NARRATIVE.

hand, purporting to be that of Dr. Franklin, was placed in mine,
seizing and shaking it so violently, that it shook my whole
frame, and also the table. • My brother, also, had each of these
hands placed in his. Thus, three distinct and different-sized
hands were within a few minutes placed in each of ours, and
recognized unmistakably as, first, a female hand; second, a
child's; third, that of a full-sized man, each with its charac-
teristic weakness or strength. At my request, the folding-doors
of the room were opened and shut with great force repeatedly.

Saturday Evening-, Nov. 30, 1861. — At home in my own
house ; carefully locked the door. Conditions favorable ; weather
clear and cold. Soon after darkening the room, heavy knocks
came upon the table with the electric rattle, but without any
light. By raps, the encouraging * No failure to-night ' was
communicated. My cane and hat and a glass of water were
called for. A vacant chair by the table moved and got into
position without being touched by us. A request was made * to
close eyes,* when a sound, like drawing a match, was heard
several times repeated upon the table, with no result. Matches
were then asked for. I procured a number of wax vestas ; and
holding one over the table, it was instantly taken by a spirit-
h'and, drawn across the table, and ignited at the third attempt.
We opened our eyes : the room was illuminated by the burning'
match ; and Dr. Franklin was before us, kneeling, the top of his
head about a foot above the table. We looked at him as long as
the match burned ; and he became invisible as it expired. . . ,
Soon after the male figure first appeared, the following was
communicated by raps: *Now, dear son, can the world ever
doubt? This is what we have so long labored to accomplish. —
B. F.* Also, *My dear, now I am satisfied. — Estelle.' Upon
cards there was subsequently written by the spirit, as follows :
* This meeting is the most important we have ever had. Long
have we tried to accomplish this manifestation, and success has
crowned our efforts. You saw that I had only to light the match
to show you that I was as naturally in form as you are. I have
long tried to come in an earthly light, and have at last suc-
ceeded.'

PLANCHETTE.

'''•Dec, 15, 1861. — The figure of Dr. Franklin appeared per-
fectly delineated, seated in the window, and permitted me to
examine his hair with my hand. The hair was to sight and
touch as real as human hair.

''''Saturday Evenings Dec, 28, 1861. — In my own house and
room, which was carefully examined, and door locked by myself.
Soon after extinguishing the gaslight, the spirit-light rose, and
requested us, by raps, to follow it across the room to the win-
dow, which was heavily curtained, to exclude the light from
the street. By raps, the following was communicated : *• I come ;
J come in a cloud,* Immediately the light became very vivid :
the * cloud ' appeared against the curtain, a portion of it over-
hanging from the top ; while the face and figure of my wife, from
the waist, was projected upon it with stereoscopic effect. White
gossamer, intertwined with violets and roses, encircled her
head; while she held in her hand a natural flower, which was
placed at my nose, and subsequently found upon the bureau,
having been carried by the spirit from a basket of flowers on the
table, standing in the centre of the room. We were told to
notice her dress, which seemed tight-fitting, of a substance
like delicate white flannel. She was leaning upon her right
hand ; the cuff of her sleeve was plain and neatly turned bade.
In answer to my inquiry, whether this appearance was not like a
bas-reliefs I was answered, ' No ; but you see the fine spirit-form,
Tou notice I come in healthy and not as one year ago to-night*
This appearance is new, and quite different from those originally
seen, and is effected without noise or demonstrations of any
kind.

^''Thursday Evenings Jan, 23. — My wife made her appear-
ance standing against the door. She was exquisitely robed
in white, and enveloped in blue gossamer. A white ribbon,
tied or knotted in the centre, passed across her waist; and a
large^and perfect bow-knot of white silk ribbon was attached to
her breast diagonally. In her hand, near her face, she held
a small oval mirror, about two inches in diameter. We had
seen the mirror before, but at a distance. On this occasion I

MR. L 'S NARRATIVE. 7 1

determined to examine it closely, and approached to within six
or eight inches. The mirror was apparently glass, and reflected
objects perfectly, — not only the light itself, but I saw my own
face in it. The spirit-finger held opposite was reflected with all
its motions. We asked for certain movements of the finger,
which were made as requested, and simultaneously reflected in
the mysterious glass. The flowers in her hair and on her person
were real in appearance. Over her forehead was a crown of
flowers. In the centre was a button or flower of black and gold
upon a background of white. A card taken from me, and upon
which I had written -a private question, was held by the spirit in
front of her face, and behind the oval mirror, which thus hung
suspended and swinging against the white card, rendering it a
real, palpable object. The light shone vividly upon her face and
figure; and while we stood looking intently, she instantly, as
quick as thought, disappeared, with a rushing sound. Then,
by raps, was communicated, *The electricity is very strong;
and we did this to show you how quickly we can disappear.'
Very soon she returned, as real as before. The light was subse-
quently placed upon the floor, near the door ; while we receded to
the middle of the room, remaining thus, at a distance of some
ten feet from the medium, for twenty minutes. We were then
requested to open the window to admit air, to enable them to
dissipate the electricity. Immediately upon the fresh air being
admitted, the light grew dim and disappeared.

" yan. 24. — A stormy night with hail and sleet, ending in a
severe gale. Conditions favorable. My wife appeared dressed
precisely as last night, except having white gossamer around
the top of her head. The * bow,* which was in the same place
upon her breast, was the same as then ; and on this occasion waj-
taken in our fingers for examination, being to sight and touch as
real as silk. A low, murmuring sound was heard, something
like the buzzing of a bee. I listened carefully, and noticed that
it came from the lips of the spirit. This was an unsuccessful
attempt to speak, or rather the preparatory process, eventually
to result, doubtless, in success. The light approached her face.

PLANCHETTE.

We were told to look in her mouth. Upon doing so, we dis-
covered what seemed a piece of dried grass projecting from her
lips about three inches. This was then placed in my hand and in
my mouth. I closed my teeth upon it, finding it a real substance.
By raps, I was told it was a spiritual substance, when it was
withdrawn, and disappeared. A large musical box was standing
upon the table, which required considerable force to start it or
to stop it by means of springs. At my request, the spirit-light
rose, resting upon the keys, and started the music, then stopped
it, changing or repeating the tunes, and finally wound it up.

^^yan, 30, 1862. — A manifestation of gr«at power and * solid
form.' A veiled figure robed in white stood by us; and, opening
the drapery which enveloped the head, we distinctly saw the
eyes, forehead, and hair of Estelle, life-like, * like flesh and Mood*
The lower part of the face was covered with the gossamer. This
figure walked and floated through the room ; kissed me, rested
its arm, while fully visible, upon my head and shoulders, repeat-
ing the same to the medium* The arm was round, full, and
flesh-like. I examined it both with my eyes and hands«.

3I1 1S62. — Estelle and Dr. Franklin appeared alter-
nately. Dr. Franklin's shirt-*bosom and collar were as real to
appearance as though made of linen. We handled them,' and
examined in the same manner his tunic, which was black and
felt like cloth : his face and features were perfect and distinctly
visible. This manifestation differs from that of last night, this
having been spoken of by them as * the fine spiritual form,' which
seems like the projection of form, color, and expression, with
stereoscopic effect. We now see that the rustling is produced by
movements of the envelope or robe, and is doubtless electrical.

Sunday Evening-, Feb, 9, 1862. — My wife appeared leaning
upon the bureau, with white lace hanging in front of and around
her head. This lace or open work (like embroidery) was so real,
that the figures were plainly discernible, and could have been
sketched. As she stood in front of the bureau, the top of the
mirror was plainly visible over her head, reflecting her form and
BwrroundingK. There were flowers in her hair; and in other

SPIRIT-WRITINGS.

respects her appearance was similar to those previously de-
scribed. The body of her dress or robe was of spotted white
gossamer, while the lace-work was in diamonds and flowers.

Wednesday Evening; Feb, 12, 1862. — I found the power
strong ; and soon after entering the room messages were rapped
out upon the door across the entire width of the room, fifteen
feet distant from the medium and myself. About fifteen minutes
after extinguishing the light, my wife came to us in exquisite
beauty ; if possible, more vividly than ever, and directly over the
table. In her bosom was a white rose, green leaves and other
smaller flowers. A card which she had written upon was visibly
given to me, handed back, and returned to me repeatedly by her,
while she was in full view. Her hand, real in form and color,
was affectionately extended to me, and caressed me with a touch
so full of tenderness and love that I could not restrain my tears;
for to me it was really her hand, her native gentleness was ex-
pressed through it. ' The card was as follows: *Dear C, —
Beautiful spring is approaching; flowery spring. Over you
lightly fall its shadows ; and may no sorrow, no clouds, touch
the brightness of your future. Have you not noticed, dear C,
that all your life you have been prospered, guided, and directed
by the guardians of your happiness? You have always been
followed by an invisible protecting power, which will ever be
near when danger threatens, to step between you and diflSculty,
to lead you into paths of happiness and peace. We are now
more closely linked, from our constant intercourse. There is
not a day closes without a lasting blessing from us. As life is
short, live well and live purely. . . . Fear not the world : there
will be a day when this great truth will be seen in its true light
and prized as it should be. . . . Be happy : all is well. Good-
night. — ESTELLE.'

*• Saturday Evenings Feb. 15. — Atmosphere unfavorable and

damp. This meeting was held especially for Mr. G , my

brother-in-law. There were present, the medium, Mr. G ,

and myself. I asked for a manifestation of power ; and we at
once received the following message : ''Listen^ and hear it come

PLANCHKTTK.

through the air ; hands of the table* Immediately a terrific
metallic shock was produced, as though a heavy chain in a bag
swung by a strong man had been struck with, his whole power
upon the tMe^ jarring" the whole house. This was repeated three
times, with decreasing force. A heavy marble-topped table
moved across the room ; and a large box did the same, no person
touching or being near either of them. An umbrella which had
been lying upon the table floated through the room, touching

each of us upon the head, and was finally placed in G *s

hand. These physical manifestations were given doubtless to
convince an additional witness of the reality of spirit or invisi-
ble power. If such was the object, the purpose was well served ;
for every possible precaution had been taken by him, even to the
sealing of the doors and windows.

^''Sunday Evenings Feb. i6, 1862. — Appearance of my wife
and of natural flowers. I had been promised a new manifesta-
tion, * something 'natural as li/eJ* We sat longer than usual in
quiet, and received the infallible message, ^ No failure,* The
spirit announced her presence by gentle taps upon my shoulder,
accompanied by rustlings, kissed me, and asked for a card and a
pin, then another pin ; all of which I handed over my shoulder,
together with a small strand of my hair, which latter was par-
|ticularly requested. The takipg of each of these articles was
accompanied by rustlings ; and, as the spirit-hand was exten ded
over my shoul der v isibl)', the^jjraper y fell up on^ my haad and
arm. Some ten minutes were now occupied by the spirit in
arranging the card, pins, &c., when the following message was
received : * I will give you a spirii-Jlower.* Immediately after-
wards an apparently freshly gathered flower was placed at my
nose, and that of the medium. My wife now appeared in white,
holding the card in one hand, and the spirit-light in the other;
while wQ discovered, fastened to the card, a leaf and flower.. I
asked if I could have the flower, and was answered in the affirma-
tive. My hand was then taken by the spirit, opened, and the
card placed thereon ; while I was particularly and repeatedly
enjoined to ' be very careful,* and ' do not not drop or disturb it*

SPIRIT-FLOWERS.

With the other hand I now lighted the gas, and found, to my
surprise and astonishment, a leaf of laurel, about two and a half
inches in length, pinned upon the card, and a pale pink flower
pinned to the centre of the leaf, with the strand of hair passed
through and tied in the leaf. We examined it carefully, smelled
it, touched it, and found it fragrant and fresh. The card had not
been during all this time within reach of the medium, who sat
on mj right, while the spirit stood at my left, and the doors were
as usual carefully and securely locked. After a careful examina-
tion of five or ten minutes, we were requested to darken the room.
Before doing so, wishing to preserve the leaf and flower, I placed
them and the card upon a book in a remote part of the room, and
returning to the medium, turned out the gas. The following
message was then communicated : * I gave you the sacred priv-
ilege of seeing this flower from our spirit-home : it has van-
ished.' I immediately relighted the gas, and directed my steps
across the room, when I found the card and the pins precisely
as I had left them ; but the leaf and flower were gone. By raps,
* Next time you shall see the flowers dissolve in the light.* The
following was also written upon another card by the spirit of
Benjamin Franklin : * My son, we are achieving a great victory
at this moment. — B. F.' ♦

** Saturday Evenings Feb. 22, .1862. — Appearance of flowers.
Cloudy. Atmosphere damp. Conditions unfavorable. At the
expiration of half an hour, a bright light rose to the surface of
the table, of the usual cylindrical form, covered with gossamer.
Held directly over this was a sprig of roses, about six inches in
length, containing two half-blown white roses, and a bud with
leaves. The flowers, leaves, and stem were perfect. They were
placed at my nose, and smelled as though freshly gathered ; but
the perfume in this instance was weak and delicate. We took
them in our fingers, and I carefully examined the stem and
flowers. The request was made as before to * be very careful.*

* Fort Donelson, on the Tennessee River, was taken on this day by the Federal
forces, February i6th.

PLANCHETTE.

I noticed an adhesive, viscous feeling which was explained as
being the result of a damp, impure atmosphere. These flowers
were held near and over the light, which seemed to feed and give
them substance in the same manner as the hand. 1 have no-
ticed that all these spiritual creations are nourished and fed or
materialized by means of the electrical reservoir or cylinder, and
that when they begin to diminish or pass off, incrassation or
increase takes place the moment they are brought in contact
with, or in proximity to, the electrical light. By raps, we were
told to ^Notice and see them dissolve* The sprig was placed
over the light, the flowers drooped, and, in less than one minute,
melted as though made of wax, their substance seeming to
spread as they disappeared. By raps, * See them come again*
A faint line immediately shot across the cylinder, grew into a
stem ; and, in about the same time required for its dissolution,
the stem, bud, and roses had grown into created perfection.
This was several times repeated, and was truly wonderful. We
were promised the phenomenon of their probable disappearance
in the gaslight when the atmosphere became pure and clear.

" Sunday Evening; Feb. 23, 1862. — Flowers. Atmosphere
very damp. Conditions unfavorable. The flowers were repro-
duced in the same manner as last evening. I felt them carefully;
and a rose was placed in my mouth, so that I took its leaves
between my lips. They were delicate as natural rose-leaves,
and cold; and there was a peculiar freshness about them, but
very little fragrance. The following message was written upon

a card: *My dear C , — Again we have to contend with the

atmosphere ; but how much we have been able to clo, owing to
the many powerful aids who have been so kind to us ! Do you
realize the great blessings we are giving you? Do you realize
what a great proof you have received in being permitted to see
the flowers which decorate our sacred walks? . . . The time is
coming, has come, when this subject will be honored. Good-
night. — ESTELLE.*

" Tuesday Evening, Feb. 25, 1862. — Appearance in presence
of a third witness, Mr. G , the medium, and myself. The

MR. L

'S NARRATIVE.

room in which we sat was connected with another smaller roon
by sliding-doors ; but the doors and windows leading into these
two were carefully sealed. After sitting about half an hour,
we were directed to open these sliding-doors ; while the medium
and myself proceeded to a window against which was hung a
dark curtain to exclude the light* as usual. Meanwhile Mr.

G remained by the table. Upon reaching the window, a

vivid light rose from the floor, discovering to us the form of a
male spirit standing against the white wall adjoining the win-
dow. At first his face was not visible, or rather was concealed
by the unusual quantity of dark drapery by which he was envel-
oped ; but after two or three efforts the face of Dr. Franklin was

recognized. During this time Mr. G was not permitted to

leave the table. At last the conditions having become stronger,
or rather the effect of his presence having been partially over-
come, the following message was received : * Dear friend, ap-

proachJ* Mr. G now came to us, when the spirit of Dr.

Franklin immediately became visible to him. He saw the hair
was real ; for while we^tood before him it was frequently placed
over and on the light to show its substantiality. He did not,
however, see the spirit in the same degree of perfection that we
do, but sufficiently well to recognize the face of Dr. Franklin as
represented in his portraits. The eyes, hair, features, and
expression, together with a portion of the drapery, were all
visibly perfect ; but the power of the electrical light was consider-
ably weakened from the effects of Mr. G 's presence. These

effects were very curious. With Mr. G in the other room,

the light was bright and vivid, decreasing as he approached in
proportion to the distance ; again brightening as he receded, and
Vice-versd, showing that the sphere of a person in the earth-form
has a direct influence upon these creations of the invisible
world; and that this influence may be a disturbing one, from no
other cause except surprise, fear, or any violent emotion result-
ing from inexperience in the phenomena."

In a letter to Mr. Coleman, dated June loth, 1862, Mr. Lt . . .
. . . . writes, "I have the pleasure of announcing to you the

PLANCHETTE.

initiation of Dr. Gray as a witness of the visible pk€ht:pce of Dr.
Franklin on Friday night last. He saw the spirit less dihtinctly
than has generally been my experience, but sufficiently well to
recognize liim. This being, however, the first time of seeiag
him, he may expect to attain by progressive steps the same vivid-
ness that has been manifested to us, after the first emotions of
surprise have been overcome by familiarity with the phenom-
enon. The doctor actually saw and took the gray hair of
Franklin's spirit, as well as a portion of the clothliffgrEflM^ ^jand,
and examined them. To me this is now a very cJRtMnotrtJccCir-
rence ; bul the additional corroborative testimony of Dr. Gray is
very important."

Dr. Gray, on his part, fully confirms all this. He writes (Jan-
uary, 1867), " I can only reply to your latest request, that I would
write out my testimony in this case for publication, that Mr.
L . . . . 's statements are each, one and all of them, fully reli-
able. His recitals of the seances in which I participated are
faithfully and most accurately stat^ffjileaving not a shade of
doubt in my mind as to the truth amRlf^racy of his accounts
of those at which I was not a witness. 1 saw with him the
philosopher Franklin, in a living, tangible, physical form,
several times and on as many different occasions. I also wit
nessed the production of lights, odors, and sounds ; and also the
formation of flowers, cloth-textures, &c., and their disintegration
and dispersion.

"These phenomena, including the apparition of Dr. Frank-
lin and also many other phenomena of like significance have

all been shown to me when Mr. L# was not present and

not in the country even.

"Mr. L. is a good observer of spirit phenomena? brave, clear
and quick sighted, void of what is called superstition, in good
health of body and mind, and remarkably unsusceptible to
human magnetism. Moreover, he knows that all forms of spirit
communication are subject to interpolation from earth-minds,
and are of no other or greater weight than the truths they con-
tain confer upon them.

COSTUME OF SPIRITS.

"Miss Fox, the medium, deported herself with patient integ-
rity of conduct, evidently doing all in her power, at all times, to
promote a fair trial and just decision of each phenomenon as it
occurred. — John F. Gray.'*

The narrative of Mr. L includes nearly all the most

important phenomena which have been experienced in connec-
tion with these modern manifestations. His observations in
respect t^^^^ostume of the- supposed spirits appear to have
be^yi^^^^^B minute. This question of the dress 'of spirits
%araRee^^^^^ discussed. When Joan of Arc was in mockery
asked by her judges about the clothing of the spirits who visited
her, she replied, "Is it possible to conceive that a God who is
served by ministering spirits cannot also clothe them ? "

Swedenborg affirms that in the spirit-world all clothing is
representative, and is outwrought from the affections and states
of its several inhabitants.

Some seers have asserte^nat the spiritual body is composed
of a subtle ether, a^^^^B|pirits make themselves visible by
means of its vibrati^^HBWan give what forms they please, by
a mere effort of th^^ll, to their coverings; that the human
body itself, and the garments we wear, are composed of the same
ultimate particles of matter; and that the spiritual fabric is
nothing but those ultimate particles in their most attenuated
state. Of the power of spirits to use the elements of our own
atmosphere, in giving concretion, visibility, and tangibility,

odor and color, to forms, the experiences of Mr. Lr and

others offer strong testimony. The subject is one which a more
advanced science may some day be able to explore.

CHAPTER IV.

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH MR. HO^

" We all are at once mortal and immortal ; inhabitants of time
nity." — y. Slack.

■pvANIEL DUNGLASS HOME was born near Edinburgh,
March, 1833. When about a year old, he was adopted by
an aunt. Some eight years afterwards he accompanied her and
her husband to America. At the age of seventeen, he was resid-
ing at Norwich, Conn. Soon aftM^ha developments at Hydes-
ville, through the Fox family, he'b^H^y|^nifest extraordinary
powers as a medium, and in i^^^^^^squired considerable
reputation among those interestec^^^^P phenomena in the
United States.

He went to Europe early in the spring of 1855 ; and his career
there, in the exercise of his wonderful gifts, has been of a charac-
ter to bring him repeatedly before the public.

Not long since he was a party to a lawsuit, at the trial of
which he was the subject of a good deal of abuse and misrep-
resentation by the English press. It was the celebrated case of
Lyon versus Home. The plaintiff, Mrs. Lyon, was a widow
lady, seventy years old or more, possessed of a considerable for-
tune, and without any child or near relative. Having read Mr.
Home's " Incidents of My Life," she called on him, introduced
herself (Oct. 30, 1866), and asked him to visit her. He did so;
and, after two or three interviews, she proposed to make him
her adopted son. In November, she executed a will in his favor;
and the next month he took the name of Lyon, advertising the
fact. She executed a deed, confirming a gift of £24,000, and
adding £6,000; and, finally, in January, i§67, she conveyed

MR. HOME AND MRS. LYON.

to him, after the reservation of a life-interest, a further snm of
£30,000. All this was done in legal form, and after deliberation
and consultation.

Whether it was the part of good taste and manly independence
in' Mr. Home to accept these large sums, we decline to discuss ;
but we will venture the remark, that, among the self-righteous
ones who have made him the subject of their denunciations, there
is probably jiot an individual who, under similar circumstances,
wouI^^^MpMe consented to be enriched in the same way.

»oir^n?facts in Mr. Home's affidavit, we are led to infer that
it was not till after he had been thus formally adopted by the
old lady as a son, that he discovered she had been calculating on
his marrying her. **Do you know,'* said she, "that nothing
would be greater fun than that I should marry you.? How the
world would talk ! " Mr. Home does not appear to have been
agreeably impressed by th^uitimation.

In her bill of conu^u|^»Irs. Lyon asserted that she 'was
made to believe by^^^^^^Bat the spirit of her deceased hus-
band required her ^^Hj^li^he said defendant." It very soon
appeared on the trfflvby her own displays of wilfulness and
headstrong unveracity, that the old lady was one whom neither
spirits out of the flesh nor in the flesh would be likely to influ-
ence to do what was contrary to her own caprice. She contra-
dicted her own testimony so grossly, that even the presiding
Vice-Chancellor — bitterly prejudiced as he was against Mr.
Home and against Spiritualism — could not avoid speaking of
her testimony as "-clearly untrustworthy, and such as no man
ought to have his case decided upon against him."

And yet there was no evidence whatever, except her own
assertion, that Mr. Home had tried to get her to adopt him, by
representing that her departed husband recommended it. Mrs.
Lyon seems to have been dazzled by the social position which
she fancied that Home occupied, by his presents from kings
and emperors, and to have aspired to mix in the aristocratic
world, and to assume in her old age a rank from which she had
been all her life excluded.

PLANCHKTTK.

She soon found she had miscalculated in regard to Mr. Home.
Instead of taking her matrimonial hints, he was so unaccommo-
dating as to fall ill, and threaten to die. He had a little boy for
whom Mrs. Lyon conceived a deadly dislike ; and she now saw
before her the prospect of the large sums she had parted with
going to enrich this youth. One fine day, as Mr. Home was
about starting for Paris, he was arrested and thrown into prison
under a writ of ne exeat regno.

The trial came on in the spring of 1868, before Vi<^j|^iancellor
GifFard, who decided the case adversely to Mr. Home^rdStling
him to restore all the money he had received from Mrs. Lyon.
From this decision Mr. Home appealed; but lately there has
been a compromise between the parties, which ends the affair.

The fable of the wolf and the lamb is recalled by Mrs. Lyon's
attempt to show that she was under the " undue influence, as-
cendency, and power" of Mr. Home. Hers appears to have
been the stronger will in the case ^ftd^he had every thing her
own way. ^^^^8C

The affidavit of Mr. Home sets WBWBfrfrom his childhood
he has been subject to the occasional ^^fpening of singular
physical phenomena in his presence, which are most certainly
not produced by him or by any other person in connection with
him. "I have," he affirms, **no control over them whatever:
they occur irregularly, and even when I am asleep. Sometimes
I am many months, and once I have been a year, without them.
I cannot account for them further than by supposing them to be
effected by intelligent beings or spirits. Similar phenomena
occur to many other persons. . . . These phenomena, occurring
in my presence, have been witnessed by thousands of intelligent
and respectable persons, including men of business, science, and
literature, under circumstances which would have rendered,
even if I had desired it, all trickery impossible."

Mr. Home proceeds to affirm that they have also been wit-
nessed in their own private apartments, when any contrivance
of his must have been detected, by the emperor and empress of
the French, the emperor of Russia and his family, the king of

MR. home's affidavit.

Prussia, and other royal personages, who have had ample oppor-
tunities, which they have used, of investigating the phenomena
and inquiring into the character of the medium.

"I have resided," continues Mr. Home, "in America, Eng-
land, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia ; and in every country
I have been received as a guest and friend by persons in the
highest position, who were quite competent to discover and
expose, as they ought to have done, any thing like contrivance \
on my part to produce these phenomena. I do not seek, and
never have sought, the acquaintance of any of these exalted
personages. They have sought me ; and I have thus had a cer-
tain notoriety thrust upon me. I do not take money, and never
have taken it ; although it has been repeatedly offered me for or
in respect of these phenomena. . . . Some of the phenomena in
question are noble and elevated, others appear to be grotesque
and undignified. For this I am not reponsible, any more than I
am for the many grotesque and undignified things which are
undoubtedly permitted to exist in the material world. I sol-
emnly swear fhat I do not produce the phenomena aforesaid,
or, in any way whatever, aid in producing them."

In the course of the cross-examination, Mr. Home said, "I
have seen spirits ; have conversed with them orally. They have
called to me in sounds audible to my ear ; and I have talked to
them. Strange sounds are heard, like a rapping. It does not
indicate who the spirit is. We take it for granted, the same as
in the call of the telegraph wire, that there is an intelligence
there at the end of it. The language used by the spirits is
exceedingly beautiful and elevated.

**I have been bodily displaced in violation of the ordinary
rules of gravity. (I must protest against its being supposed
that I am the only person to whom this has occurred.) Chairs
and tables have been moved in the same way. I have found a
useful result of Spiritualism in convincing those who did not
believe in it of the immortality of the soul."

Mr. Home is a person of very delicate constitution and ex-
treme nervous sensibility. He is tall, slender, and fair-haired.

PLANCHETTE.

and does not convey the idea of robustness, physical or mental.
His acquaintances generally appear to have mingled in their
regard for him a sort of tenderness, as if he were one to be
shielded from the rougher experiences of life. Those who have
known him best, testify to his character as " a man of honor
and proper moral feeling."

Our first call on Mr. Home was made without signifying our
intention to any one. We had never seen him or corresponded
with him, and did not suppose that he even knew us by name.
But as we rang the bell, he, without having seen us, said to

Mrs. R., at whose house he was stopping, **That is Mr.

who rings. He has come to call on me."

Dr. Winslow Lewis, long known as one of the most eminent
surgeons of Boston, informed us, in Home's presence (Feb. 21,
1865), that he (Dr. L.) took up the "Boston Directory" the
day before to look for a name which he had not mentioned to
any human being. "Here, I'll find it for you," said Home,
taking the book out of his hand, and instantly pointing to the
name. *

Dr. Lewis also told us that he handed to Home a photograph-
album, full of likenesses, the originals of which were unknown
to him ; and Home pointed to those persons who had deceased,
and in every instance he was right.

"Second sight," said Home, joining in the conversation, "is
my strong point." (His mother had been a seeress. From her
he had probably derived his gift.) "Being at a party once in
London, I heard one man say to another, *Do you know that
fellow?' — *Oh, yes! that's that humbug, Home.' At once I
turned to the last speaker, and said, 'Excuse me, sir; but I am
at this moment vividly impressed with the particulars of .an
affair in which you were an actor* — let me see — when you were
twenty- two years of age. But I cannot help wondering why
you took the course you did, when you might have ' — here

• Instances of a similar faculty in the lives of Zschokke, the late Forceythe Willson,
and others, are well authenticated.

THACKERAY A SPIRITUALIST. . 85

I whispered the rest in his ear. The man looked aghast, and,
drawing me aside, said, * There should be -no human being but
myself who knows a word of that affair. Saj no more. You
have said enough.* This man subsequently became one of my
best friends."

As these are comparatively very slight manifestations of
power, we will not pause to anticipate the obvious objections
which skepticism might raise to the uncorroborated form in
which they are here put.

From the numerous published accounts, amounting now to
several hundred, by many different witnesses> of the phenomena
produced through the mediumship of Home, we select the
account, which we slightly abridge, by the late Robert Bell, con-
tributed to the " Cornhill Magazine " (London, August, i860),
when the late Mr. Thackeray — so justly celebrated for his writ-
ings — was the editor.

In introducing the account, Mr. Thackeray says, " I can vouch
for the good faith and honorable character of our correspondent,
a friend of twenty-five years* standing."

Of Mr. Thackeray's own convictions on the subject we have
the following record, which we extract from Weld's "Last Win-
ter in Rome " (1865) : —

" I remember well meeting the late Mr. Thackeray, at a large
dinner-party, shortly after the publication in the * Cornhill
Magazine,* then edited by him, of the paper entitled * Stranger
than Fiction.* In this paper, as will be remembered by many
readers, a detailed account was given of a spiritual sdauce, at
which Mr. Home performed, or caused to be performed, many
surprising things, the most astounding being his floating in
the air above the heads of persons in the room. There were
several scientific men at the dinner-party, all of whom availed
themselves of the earliest opportunity to reproach Mr. Thacke-
ray with having permitted the paper in question to appear in a
periodical of which he was editor, holding, as he did, the high-
est rank in the world of letters. Mr. Thackeray, with that
imperturbable calmness which he could so well a8sume^ Kaax^

PLANCH ETTK.

all that was said against him, and the paper in question, and
thus replied : * It is all very well for you, who have probably
never seen spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do ; but, had
you seen what I have witnessed, you would hold a different
opinion.' He then proceeded to inform us that, when in New
York, at a dinner-party, he saw the large and heavy dinner-table,
covered with decanters, glasses, dishes, plates — in short, every
thing appertaining to dessert — rise fully two feet from the
ground, the modus operandi being, as he alleged, spiritual force.
No possible jugglery, he declared, was or could have been em-
ployed on the occasion ; and he felt so convinced that the motive
force was supernatural, that he then and there gave in his adhe-
sion to the truth of Spiritualism, and consequently accepted the
article on Mr. Home's stance. Whether Mr. Thackeray thought
differently before he died, I cannot say; but this I know, that
every possible argument was used by those present to endeavor
to shake his faith in Mr. Home's spiritual manifestations, which
were, as they declared, after all but sorry performances com-
pared with the surprising tricks of Houdin or Frikell."

We will not longer detain the reader from that part of Mr
Bell's paper relating to Mr. Home : —

** 'I have seen what I would not have believed on your testi-
mony, and what I cannot, therefore, expect you to believe upon
mine,' was the reply of Dr. Treviranus to inquiries put to him
by Coleridge as to the reality of certain magnetic phenomena,
which that distinguished savant was reported to have witnessed.
It appears to me that I cannot do better than adopt this answer
as an introduction to the narrative of facts I am about to relate.
It represents very clearly the condition of the mind before and
after it has passed through experiences of things that are irrec-
oncilable with known laws. I refuse to believe such things upon
the evidence of other people's eyes ; and I may possibly go so
far as to protest that I would not believe them even on the evi-
dence of my own. When I have seen them, however, I am
compelled to regard the subject from an entirely different point
of view. It is no longer a question of mere credence or author-

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

ity, but a question of fact. Whatever conclusions, if any, I may
have arrived at on this question of fact, I see distinctly that I
have been projected into a better position for judging of it than
I occupied before; and that what then appeared an imposition,
or a delusion, now assumes a shape which demands investiga-
tion.

" But I cannot expect persons who have not witnessed these
things, to take my word for them ; because, under similar circum-
stances, I certainly should not have taken theirs. What I do
expect is, that they will admit as reasonable, and as being in
strict accordance with the philosophical method of procedure,
the mental progress I have indicated, from the total rejection of
extraordinary phenomena upon the evidence of others, to the
recognition of such phenomena as matter of fact, upon our own
direct observation. This recognition points the way to inquiry,
which is precisely what I desire to promote. . . .

" Our party of eight or nine assembled in the evening; and the
sdance commenced about nine o'clock, in a spacious drawing-
room, of which it is necessary to give some account, in order to
render perfectly intelligible what is to follow. In different parts
of the room were sofas and ottomans, and in the centre a round
table, at which it was arranged that the sdance should be held.
Between this table and three windows, which filled up one side
of the room, there was a large sofa. The windows were draped
with thick curtains, and protected by spring-blinds. The space
in front of the centre-window was unoccupied ; but the windows
on the right and left were filled by geranium-stands.

"The company at the table consisted partly of ladies and
I artly of gentlemen ; and amongst the gentlemen was the cele-
brated Mr. Home. ... He looks like a man whose life has been
passed in a mental conflict. The expression of his face in repose
is that of physical suffering ; but it quickly lights up when you
address him, and his natural cheerfulness colors his whole man-
ner. There is more kindliness and gentleness than vigor in the
'character of his features ; and the same easy-natured disposition
may be traced in his unrestrained intercourse. He is yet so

PLANCHETTK.

young, that the playfulness of boyhood has not passed awaj;
and he never seems so thoroughly at ease with himself and
others as when he is enjoying some light and temperate amuse-
ment. ...

"The sdance commenced in the centre of the room. I pass
over the preliminary vibrations to come at once to the more
remarkable features of the evening. From unmistak^ible indi-
cations, conveyed in different forms, the table was finally re-
moved to the centre-window, displacing the sofa, which was
wheeled away. The deep space between the table and the win-
dow was unoccupied, but the rest of the circle was closely packed.
Some sheets of white paper, and two or three lead-pencils, an
accordion, a small hand-bell, and a few flowers were placed on
the table. Sundry communications now took place, which I
will not stop to describe; and at length an intimation was
received, through the usual channel of correspondence, that the
lights must be extinguished. As this direction is understood to
be given only when -unusual manifestations are about to be made,
it was followed by an interval of anxious suspense. There were
lights on the walls, mantel-piece, and console-table ; and the
process of putting them out seemed tedious. When the last was
extinguished, a dead silence ensued, in which the tick of a watch
could be heard.

" We must now have been in utter darkness, but for the pale
light that came in through the window, and the flickering glare
tl^rown fitfully over a distant part of the room by a fire which
was rapidly sinking in the grate. We could see, but could
scarcely distinguish, our hands upon the table. A festoon of
dull gleaming forms round the circle represented what we knew
to be our hands. An occasional ray from the window now and
then revealed the hazy surface of the white sheets, and the misty
bulk of the accordion. We knew where these were placed ; and
could discover them with the slightest assistance from the gray,
cold light of a watery sky. The stillness of expectation that
ensued during the first few minutes of that visible darkness wa%'
80 profound that, for all the sounds of life that were heard, it
might have been an empty chamber.

ROBERT bell's NARRATIVE.

" The table and the window, and the space between the table
and the window, engrossed all eyes, it was in that direction
everybody instinctively looked for a revelation. Presently, the
tassel of the cord of the spring-blind began to tremble. We
could see it plainly against the sky ; and, attention being drawn
to the circumstance, every eye was upon the tassel. Slowly,
and apparently with caution, or difficulty, the blind began to
descend : the cord was evidently being drawn ; but the force
applied to pull down the blind seemed feeble and uncertain. It
succeeded, however, at last; and the room was thrown into
deeper darkness than before. But our vision was becoming
accustomed to it; and masses of things were growing palpable to
us, although we could see nothing distinctly. Several times, at
intervals, the blind was raised and pulled down ; but, capricious
as the movement appeared, the ultimate object seemed to be to
diminish the light.

** A whisper passed round the table about hands having been
seen or felt. Unable to answer for what happened to others, I
will speak only of what I observed myself. The table-cover was
drawn over my knees, as it was with the others. I felt distinctly
a twitch, several times repeated, at my knee. It was the sensa-
tion of a boy's hand, partly scratching, partly striking, and
pulling me in play. It went away. Others described the same
sensation; and the celerity with which it frolicked, like Puck,
under the table, now at one side and now at another, was sur-
prising. Soon after, what seemed to be a large hand came t
under the table-cover, and with the fingers clustered to a point,
raised it between me and the table. Somewhat too eager to
sati&fy my curiosity, I seized it, felt it very sensibly ; but it went
out, like air, in my grasp. I know of no analogy in connection
with the sense of touch by which I could make the nature of that
feeling intelligible. It was as palpable as any soft substance,
velvet, or pulp ; and at the touch it seemed as solid ; but press-
ure reduced it to air.

**ft was now suggested that one of the party should hold the
hand-bell under the table; which was no sooner done than it

PLANCHETTE.

was taken awaj, and after being rung at different points was
finally returned, still under the table, into the hand of another
person.

** While this was going forward, the white sheets were seen
moving, and gradually disappeared over the edge of the table.
Long afterwards we heard them creasing and crumpling on the
floor, and saw therti returned again to the table ; but there was
no writing upon them. In the same way, the flowers which lay
near the edge were removed. The semblance of what seemed a
hand, with white, long, and delicate fingers, rose up slowly in
the darkness, and, bending over a flower, suddenly vanished with
it. This occurred two or three times; and although each
appearance was not equally palpable to every person, there was
no person who did not see some of them. The flowers were
distributed in the manner in which they had been removed ; a
hand, of which the lambent gleam was visible, slowly ascending
from beneath the cover, and placing the flower in the hand for
which it was intended. In the flower-stands in the adjoining
window, we could hear geranium-blossoms snapped oft*, which
were afterwards thrown to different persons.

** Still more extraordinary was that which followed, or rather
which took place, while we were watching this transfer of the
flowers. Those who had keen eyes, and who were in the best
position for catching the light upon the instrument, declared
that they saw the accordion in motion. I could not. It was as
• black as pitch to me. But, concentrating my attention on the
spot where I supposed it to be, I soon perceived a dark mass rise
awkwardly above the edge of the table, and then go down, the
instrument emitting a single sound, produced by its being struck
against the table as it went over. It descended to the floor in
silence; and a quarter of an hour afterwards, when we were
engaged in observing some fresh phenomena, we heard the
accordion beginning to play where it lay on the ground.

** Apart from the wonderful consideration of its being played
without hands, no less wonderful was the fact of its being
played in a narrow space, which would not admit of its being

SPIRIT-MUSIC.

drawn out with the requisite freedom to its full extent. We
listened with suspended breath. The air was wild, and full of
strange transitions, with a wail of the most pathetic sweetness
running through it. The execution was no less remarkable for
its delicacy than its power. When the notes swelled in some of
the bold passages, the sound rolled through the room with an
astounding reverberation; then, gently subsiding, sank into a
strain of divine tenderness. But it was the close that touched
the hearts, and drew the tears of the listeners. Milton dreamt of
this wondrous termination when he wrote of * linked sweetness
long drawn out.' By what art the accordion was made to yield
that dying note, let practical musicians determine. , Our ears,
that heard it, had never before been visited by * a sound so fine.*
It continued diminishing and diminishing, and stretching far
away into distance and darkness, until the attenuated thread of
sound became so exquisite that it was impossible at last to fix
the moment when it ceased.

"That an instrument should be played without hands, is a
proposition which nobody can be expected to accept. The whole
story will be referred to one of the two categories under which >
the whole of these phenomena are consigned by * common sense.'
It will be discarded as a delusion or a fraud. Either we ima-
gined we heard it, and really did not hear it; or there was some
one under the table, or some mechanism was set in motion to
produce the result. Having made the statement, I feel that I am
bound, as far as I can, to answer these objections, which I admit •
to be perfectly reasonable. Upon the likelihood of delusion, my
testimony is obviously worth nothing. With respect to fraud, I
may speak more confidently. It is scarcely necessary to say, that
in so small a circle, occupied by so many persons, who were
inconveniently packed together, there was not room for a child
of the size of a doll, or for the smallest piece of machinery, to
operate. But we need not speculate on what might be done b^
skilful contrivances in confines so narrow, since the question i&
removed out of the region of conjecture by the fact, that, upon
holding up the instrument myself in one hand, in the open room,

PLANCHETTK.

with the full light upon it, similar strains were emitted, the
regular action of the accordion going on without any visible
agency. And I should add that, during the loud and vehement
passages, it became so difficult to hold, in consequence of the ex-
traordinary power with which it was played from below, that I was
obliged to grasp the top with both hands. This experience
was not a solitary one. I witnessed the same result on diflferent
occasions, when the instrument was held by others.

** It is not my purpose to chronicle all the phenomena of the
evening, but merel;^to touch upon some of the most prominent ;
and that which follows, and which brought us to the conclusion
of the sdance, is distinguished from the rest by this peculiarity,
— that it takes us entirely out of that domain of the marvellous
in which the media are inanimate objects.

" Mr. Home was seated next to the window. Through the
semi-darkness his head was dimly visible against the curtains,
and his hands might be seen in a faint white heap before him.
Presently, he said, in a quiet voice, *My chair is moving; I am
off the ground : don't notice me ; talk of something else,' or
words to that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curios-
ity, not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few
words awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon
some indifferent topic. I was sitting nearly opposite to Mr.
Home ; and I saw his hands disappear from the table, and his
head vanish into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two
more he spoke again. This time his voice was in the air above
our heads. He had risen from his chair to a height of four or
five feet from the ground. As he ascended higher, he described his
position, which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became
horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the gen-
tlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse. In a
moment or two more, he told us that he was going to pass across
the window, against the gray, silvery light of which he would be
visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his figure
pass from one side of the window to the other, feet foremost,
lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he passed, and

MANIFESTATIONS XHROUGH MR. HOME. 93

told US that he would turn the reverse way, and recross the
window; which he did. His own tranquil confidence in the
safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most novel
peril, gave confidence to everybody else ; but, with the strongest
nerves, it was impossible not to be conscious of a certain sensa-
tion of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle for several
minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly, over our heads.
I heard his voice behind me in the air, and felt something lightly
brush my chair. It was his foot, which he gave me leave to
touch. Turning to the spot where it was on the top of the chair,
I placed my hand gently upon it, when he uttered a cry of pain ;
""and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with a palpable shudder.
It was evidently not resting on the chair, but floating; and it
sprang from the touch as a bird would. He now passed over to
the farthest extremity of the room; and we could judge by his
voice of the altitude and distance he had attained. He had
reached the ceiling, upon which he made a slight mark, and
soon afterwards descended, and resumed his place at the table.
An incident which occurred during this atrial passage, and
imparted a strange solemnity to it, was that the accordion, which
we supposed to be on the ground under the window, close to us,
played a strain of wild pathos in the air from the most distant
corner of the room.

" I give the driest and most literal account of these scenes,
rather than run the risk of being carried away into descriptions
which, however true, might look like exaggerations. But the
reader can understand, without much assistance in the way of
suggestion, that at such moments, when the room is in deep
twilight, and strange things are taking place, the imagination is
ready to surrender itself to the belief that the surrounding.space
is inhabited by supernatural presences. Then is heard the tread
of spirits, with velvet steps, across the floor; then the ear catches
the plaintive murmur of the departed child, whispering a tender
cry of * Mother I * through the darkness ; and then it is that forms
of dusky vapor are seen in motion, and colored atmospheres rise
round the figures that form that circle of listeners and watchers.

PLANCHETTE.

I exclude all euch sights and sounds because they do not admit
of direct and satisfactory evidence, and because no sufficient
answer can be made to the objection, that fhey may be the
unconscious work of the imagination.

" Palpable facts, witnessed by many people, stand on a widely
dififerent ground. If the proofs of their occurrence be perfectly
legitimate, the nature of the facts themselves cannot be admitted
as a valid reason for refusing to accept them as facts. Evidence,
if it be otherwise trustworthy, is not invalidated by the unlikeli-
hood of that which it attests. What is wanted here, then, is to
treat facts as facts, and not to decide the question over the head
of the evidence.

"To say that certain phenomena are incredible, is merely to
say that they are inconsistent with the present state of our
knowledge ; but, knowing how imperfect dur knowledge is, we
are not, therefore, justified in asserting that they are impossible.
The * failures * which have occurred at siances are urged as
proofs that the whole thing is a cheat. If such an argument be
worth noticing, it is sufficient to say that ten thousand failures
do not disprove a single fact. But it must be evident that, as we
do not know the conditions of * success,* we cannot draw any
argument from * failures.' We often hear people say that they
might believe such a thing, if such another thing were to hap-
pen ; making assent to a particular fact, by an odd sort of logic,
depend upon the occurrence of something else. * I will believe,*
for example, says a philosopher of this stamp, * that a table has
risen from the ground, when I see the lamp-posts dancing qua-
drilles. Then, tables? Why do these things happen to tables?'
Why, that is one of the very matters which it is desirable to
investigate, but which we shall never know any thing about so
long as we ignore inquiry.

" And, above all, of what use are these wonderful manifesta-
tions? What do they prove? What benefit have they conferred
on the world ? Sir John Herschel has answered these questions
with a weight of authority which is final. * The question. Cut
bonof — to what practical end and advantage do your researches

CONFIRMATION OF MR. BELL's NARRATIVE. 95

tend? — is one which the speculative philosopher, who loves
knowledge for its own sake, and enjoys, as a rational being
should enjoy, the mere contemplation of harmonious and mutu-
ally dependent truths, can seldom hear without a sense of
humiliation. He feels that there is a lofty and disinterested
pleasure in his speculations, which ought to exempt them from
such questioning. But,' adds Sir John, * if he can bring himself
to descend from this high but fair ground, and justify himself,
his pursuits, and his pleasures, in the eyes of those around him,
he has only to point to the history of all science, where specula-
tions, apparently the most unprofitable, have almost invariably
been those from which the greatest practicable applications have
emanated.'

"The first thing to be done is to collect and verify facts. But
this can never be done if we insist upon refusing to receive any
facts, except such as shall appear to us likely to be true, according
to the measure of our intelligence and knowledge. My object is
to apply this truism to the case of the phenomena of which we
have been speaking; an object which I hope will not be over-
looked by any persons who may do me the honor to quote this
narrative."

Of this account, Dr. J. M. Gully (known to many American
as well as English patients), who was present at the sdance, and
the neighbor of Mr. Bell, says, " I can state with the greatest
positiveness that the record is, in every particular, correct ; and
that no trick, machinery, sleight-of-hand, or other artistic con-
trivance, produced what we heard and beheld. ... I may add
that the writer omits to mention several curious phenomena. A
distinguished littirateur^ who was present, asked the supposed
spirit of his father whether he would play his favorite ballad for
us. Almost immediately the flute-notes of the accordion (which
was on the floor) played through, * Ye banks and braes of Bonnie
Doon,' which the gentleman assured us was his father's favorite
air, whilst the flute was his father's favorite instrument. He then
asked for another favorite air, not Scotch, of hi« father's, and
* The Last Rose of Summer' was played in the same note. This,
the gentleman told us, was the air to which he had alluded."

PLANCHETTE.

Mr. C. F. Varlej, the electrician, in a letter dated May 7th,
1868, gives an account of a sitting at his own house, with Mr.
Home ; when a large ottoman, capable of seating eight persons,
was moved all over the room, and a side-table was driven up to
him by invisible means; Mr. V. having hold of both Mr. Home's
hands and legs at the time. ** Imposture'," says Mr. V., "was
impossible."

In the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read that King
Nebuchadnezzar caused three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, to be bound and cast into a burning, fiery furnace.
But a fourth form, like unto "the Son of God," was seen walk-
ing with the three, loose from their bonds, in tl(ie fire. " And the
princes, governors, and captains, and the lijng's counsellors,
being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the
fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither
were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on
them."

Investigators into modern spiritual phenomena will not ques-
tion the literal truth of this narrative. The facts have been
paralleled repeatedly during the last twenty years.

The ordeal by fire is of great antiquity. It was known to the
Greeks. In one of the plays of Sophocles, a suspected person
declares himself ready " to handle hot iron, and to walk over
fire " in proof of his innocence.

Blackstone, the great legal authority, writes, "Fire-ordeal
was performed either by taking up in the hand, unhurt, a piece
of red-hot iron, of one, two, or three pounds* weight; or else by
walking, barefoot and blindfold, over nine red-hot ploughshares,
laid lengthwise at unequal distances ; and if the party escaped
being hurt, he was adjudged innocent; but if it happened other-
wise, he was then condemned as guilty. By this method. Queen
Emma, the mother of Edward the Confessor, is mentioned to
have cleared her character when suspected of familiarity with
Alwyn, Bishop of Winchester."

The ordeal was accompanied with religious service, within con-
secrated walls ; and the solemnity with which the Church super-

THE ORDEAL BY FIRE.

intended the appeal to Heaven invested it with a sacred char-
acter. A form of ritual was appointed by ecclesiastical author-
ity. It will be familiar to many readers, from its being given
by Sir Walter Scott in the historical Notes to his ** Fair Maid of
Perth."

The theory that the exemption, in these cases, from harm by
fire was the result of trick, or fraud, or the contrivance ot
priestcraft; that chemical agencies were applied to protect the
body from the natural effects of fire ; that some liniment was used
lo anoint the soles of the feet ; that asbestos was mixed with a
composition to cover the skin ; that the hands were protected by
asbestos gloves, so made as to imitate the skin, — is all pure
supposition. There is no evidence to support it: it is simple
conjecture as to how it is supposed these things might have been
done, not evidence as to how they really were done. To prevent
the defendant from preparing his hands by art, and in order to
ascertain the result of the ordeal, his hands were covered up
and sealed during the three days which preceded and followed
the fiery application ; and it is an entirely gratuitous conjecture
that those in whose care the accused was placed made use of
these opportunities to apply preventives to those whom they
wished to acquit, and to bring back the hands to their natural
condition. ** Even were the clergy, generally, base enough, and
impious enough," says Mr. Shorter, **to resort to these juggling
tricks, and blasphemously appeal to Heaven with a lie in their
mouths, and with the consciousness of so monstrous a fraud,
this could scarcely have been done without the connivance of
magistrates and civil rulers, who were not always well disposed
to the Church, but not unfrequently looked upon the ecclesiasti-
cal authorities with a jealous eye."

The instances are quite numerous in which American mediums
have thrust their hands into the flames of hot fire, and held
them there for a minute or more.

At a sdance in London, in i860, in the presence of several per-
sons (whose names are at the service of the curious), Mr. Home,
being entranced, did, in the presence of all, lay his head on the

PLANCHETTE.

burning coals, where it remained several moments, he sustain-
ing no injury : not a hair of his head was singed.

A writer, to whose intelligence and veracity Mr. Shorter*
bears testimony, has Witnessed this fire-test several times ; and,
to bring up our chain of evidence to this year of grace 1868, we
quote from his letter, of March of that year, to Mr. S. : —

" The evening on which the phenomena I am about to relate
occurred, had been full of interest, several very remarkable
manifestations having taken place : such as the absorption of
water by an unseen agency, and the retention of water in an
open-necked bottle, though the same was inverted and violently
moved and swung about. Mr. Home, who was all the time in a
deep trance, now poured several drops of water upon his finger-
points ; and I noticed a slight jet of steam rise, hissingly, from
the ends of his fingers, and accompanied by flames of electric
light, or odic, of a violet, bluish color, half an inch to an inch
in length, much resembling the drawings given in Reichen-
bach*s works. Still continuing in a trance, Mr. Home now
approached the fire, and, kneeling down before the hearth, pro-
ceeded to explain how great the power of spiritual beings was
over matter, not because they worked miracles, but from their
superior chemical knowledge ; adding, * We gladly have shown
you our power over fluids: our power over solids is as great.
Now see how I handle burning coal ; * then laying hold of the
burning back of coal in the hearth with his hands, he deliber-
ately broke it asunder; and, taking a large lump of incandescent
coal int0 the palm of his hand (the size of an orange), Mr. Home

arose and walked up to Mrs. , whose alarm at what she

was witnessing had quite unbalanced her. / examined his hand
and wrist; the heat was so intense that it struck through the
back of his hand, all but scorching his wristband; and Mr.
Home then, addressing Mrs. , said, 'That is a burning

* Under the Latinized name of Thomas Brevior, Mr. Thomas Shorter, of Ix>ndon,
a man of most unimpeachable integrity, and of rare ability, has contributed to the
literature of Spmtnalism uaat of the most valuable writings with which it has been

MR. home's fire-test.

coal, A ; it is a burning coal ; feel the heat of his hand. A

burning coal will not hurt Daniel ! — have faith ! * / closely
examined his hand, and by the light of the glowing" coal I could
trace every line in the palm of the hand. The skin was not, as
will be surmised, covered by a glove, or steeped in a solution
of alum : it was as clean as soap and water could make it. Mr.
Home now explained that spiritual beings had the power of
abstracting heat as a distinctive element; and to prove this he
said, now mark: —

*' * We will cool it now, — draw out the heat.* My doubts were
by this time thoroughly aroused : I closely watched the process.
On laying hold of the coal, which had become black, I found it
to be comparatively cooled ; and, taking it from his hand, I ex-
amined it carefully ; s6 also the skin of his hand. At his request,
I returned the cokl into the palm of his hand ; almost instanta-
neously, the heat returned; not to incandescence, only the
caloric. On applying my hand to the coal, I burnt myself, and
took conviction at the cost of a slight injury. I cannot say I
doubted any more. The scrutiny I had submitted the hand
of Mr. Home to precluded this; but, desirous of making cer-
tain of the fact of an unprotected surface of the hand of the
medium being * fire-proof,* I took Mr. Home's hand, rubbed it,
moistened it; not a trace of any foreign matter, and, strange
enough, no smell of smoke, or the burnt smell of fire observa-
ble. Mr. Home, who was still in a trance, smiled good-temper-
edly at my persevering efforts to undo my own conviction. . . .

" On another evening, Mr. Home, after he had shownnus some
truly remarkable phenomena, all whilst in a trance, knelt down
before the hearth: deliberately arranging the bed of burning
coal with his hands, he commenced fanning away the flames;
then, to our horror and amazement, placed his face and head in
the flames^ which appeared to form a bed, upon which his face
rested. I narrowly watched the phenomenon, and could see the
flames touch his hair. On withdrawing his face from the flames,
I at once examined his hair ; not a fibre burnt or scorched^ — un-
scathed he came out from the fire-test, a true medium.

lOO

PLANCHETTE.

" I am aware that great incredulity will reward my narrative.
I give what I have seen, as a fact, refraining from explanation.

"That the fire-test has played its part in the records of every
race of people, the veriest tyro in history knows. Fire-test was
tiie crucial test of religious fanatics, whose unreasoning ortho-
doxy sought strength by imitating the wondrous phenomenon I
have just been recording."

Thus, then, the credibility of the narratives from the Hebrew
Scriptures is confirmed by, and they in turn confirm, the similar
narratives which we find in various countries and centuries, even
to our own. Their range is too extensive, many of them are too
circumstantial and well attested, the testimony to the facts is
too clear, too independent and concurrent, to permit us to assign
them wholly to imposture. Make what large and liberal abate-
ment you will for fraud on the one hand, and credulity on the
other, you cannot altogether dispose of the question in that
way ; and any attempt to do so can only be fitly characterized
as itself an experiment on the credulity of mankind.

Another extraordinary experience, of which Mr. Home has
been the subject, is the elongation and shortening of his body.
This was a phenomenon not unknown to the ancients, and to
inquirers into the facts of witchcraft. Jamblichus, who flour-
ished in the fourth century after Christ, writes, "The signs of
those that are inspired are multiform. Sometimes there are
pleasing harmonies, &c. . . . Again, the body is seen to be
taller or larger, or is elevated, or borne aloft through the air;
or "I'le contraries of these are seen to take place about it."

Mr. H. D. Jencken, of Norwood, England, communicates,
under date of December, 1867, his experiences at four seances, at
which the body of Mr. D. D. Home was elongated and short-
ened; and on all these occasions Mr. J. used his utmost en-
deavor to make certain of the fact. On two of them, he had the
amplest opportunity of examining Mr. Home, and measuring
the actual elongation and shortening. At one, the extension
appeared to take place from the waist ; and the clothing separated
Mr. J., who is six feet, hardly reached up

WHY ARE WE NOT ALL MEDIUMS? lOI

to Mr. Home's shoulder. Walking to and fro, Mr. Home es-
pecially called attention to the fact of his feet being firmly
planted on the ground.

"He then," says Mr. J., "grew shorter and shorter, until he
only reached my shoulder, his waistcoat overlapping to his hip.
. . . Encouraging every mode of testing the truth of this mar-
vellous phenomenon, Mr. Home made me hold his feet, whilst

the Hon. Mr. placed his hands on his head and shoulders.

The elongation was repeated three times. Twice, whilst he was
standing, the extension, measured on the wall by the Hon.

Mr. , showed eight inches; the extension at the waist,

as measured by Mr. , was six inches ; and the third time

the elongation occurred, Mr. Home was seated next to Mrs.

, who, placing her hand on his head, and her feet on /its

feet, had the utmost difficult}^ in keeping her position, as Mr.
Home's body grew higher and higher; the extreme extension
reached being six inches."

" I could name many," writes the well-known Mrs. S. C. Hall,
" who have been lifted out of the slough of materialism by, in
the first instance, seeing the marvellous manifestations that
arise from Mr. Home's mediumship." And she adds, " Medium-
ship is a mystery we cannot fathom, nor understand why the
power should be delegated to one more than to another."

But it is equally perplexing why other gifts should be dele-
gated to one person and not to another; why Mozart should be
a consummate musician at five years of age, and another person
should not, at fifty, be able to tell one tune from another ; why
an idiot boy should possess an astonishing power of computa-
tion, and another person, well-end<f«ired in most respects, should
not be able to do in a week what the other will do in a few
seconds.

A certain " secularist" denies all authority to instinct in sup-
plying hopes of a future life, inasmuch as he does not happen to
be conscious of the existence in himself of that instinct which
others undoubtedly have in a strong degree. But it is just as
irrational for a man to deny immortality to others, because he

I02

PLANCHETTE.

himself msLy be unconscious of those transcendent faculties
which are developed in mediums, as it would be for him to
deny, because of his own deficiencies as a mathematician or a
musician, the possibility of the existence of such mortals as
Newton and Beethoven.

** Why has not Providence made the possession of all good
things universal and unexceptional it may be asked. In other
words, Why has not God made all intelligences perfect like
himself? Why does he permit any existence but his own ? The
advocate of the theory of pre-existence says we bring our facul-
ties from our anterior states ; so that what we make our own
we keep.

It is inscrutable, and seems unjust, that Providence should
give my neighbor a faculty, and deny it to me / especially when
I greatly desire and covet it. We cannot explain why Provi-
dence should be so partial ; but let us not, on that account^ deny
the fact. Because Swedenborg, or the Seeress of Prevorst, or
Andrew Jackson Davis, or Daniel Home, or Emma Hardinge
may see a spirit, and we may not, let us not jump to the conclu-
sion that they are either dupes or liars; especially when they
prove to us, as they do, that they possess powers of prevision, or
clairvoyance, which we do not possess (at least in our normal
state), and which are such as we ascribe only to spirits.

There may be a faculty for apprehending spiritual truths, and
for communicating with spiritual beings, just as there is for
grasping the fundamental principles of mathematical or musical
science. Where the faculty is deficient, let us beware how we
deny the rightfulness of its existence in others, — pronouncing
it a mere excrescence uporf the human soul, to be removed by
the surgery of those "secular" doctors, who think to cure the
great heart of humanity of the hope of rejoining the loved ones
gone before.

CHAPTER V.

THE SALEM PHENOMENA OF 1692 AND x868.

" When a man is so fugitive and unsettled, that he will not stand to the verdict of
his own faculties, one can no more fasten any thing upon him than he can write in the
water, or tie knots of the wind." — Henry More,

A N elaborate work on Salem Witchcraft, from the pen of the
Rev. Charles W. Upham, an esteemed Unitarian clergy-
man, was published in Boston, U.S., in 1867. Of it the " Edin-
burgh Review" (July, 1868) remarks, ** No more accurate piece
of history has ever been written."

Accurate in its facts it may be, and yet of questionable accuracy
in the construction it puts on them.

If there is any thing in human history that is established by
human testimony, it is the occurrence, in all the ages of which
we have any authentic record, of phenomena, still familiar to
multitudes, but which are now denied by a large class of minds;
not because the phenomena are not vouched for by abundant
testimony, but because they do not happen to accord with indi-
vidual notions of the possible or the actual.

Sir William Blackstone did not depart from this world till four
years after the declaration of American Independence. He was
the contemporary of our immediate ancestors. His " Commen-
taries on Law and Testimony" are still so highly esteemed, that
they have not to this day been superseded as the first work
proper to be placed in the hands of the law student. Few men
better qualified to weigh and scrutinize testimony, at once in a
practical and philosophical spirit, have ever lived ; and, on the
subject of Witchcraft, Blackstone remarks, in the fourth book of

PLANCHKTT*.

his Commentaries, "To deny the possibility, nay, actual exist-
ence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the
revealed Word of God in various passages of both the Old and
New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every
nation in the world hath borne testimony, either by examplei
seemingly well attested^ or by prohibitory laws, which, at least,
suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits."

Mr. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism" (1864), shows
^ that the testimony establishing the facts of witchcraft is of the
most irresistible character. The accumulations of evidence are
such as to amaze the skeptical student. "The wisest men in
Europe shared in the belief of these facts ; the ablest defended it ;
the best were zealous foes of all who assailed it. For hundreds
of years no man of any account rejected it. Lord Bacon could
not divest himself of it. Shakespeare accepted it, as did the
most enlightened of his contemporaries. Sir Thomas Browne
declared that those who denied the existence of witchcraft were
not only infidels, but also, by implication, atheists."

The phenomena of witchcraft were real enough for the author-
ities in England and Scotland to burn the supposed witches by
thousands; for Geneva (1515) to burn five hundred in three
months ; for the diocese of Como in Italy to slaughter one thou-
sand ; for a single diocese in France to destroy more than could
be reckoned; for the little town of Salem in Massachusetts to
put to death some of its best men and women.

All at once a re-action in public opinion took place, and the
belief in witchcraft declined. From one extreme men went to
the other. The re- action was at first not so much against the
facts as against the fanatifcal construction put upon them ; but
the general discredit soon involved both. An unfavorable public
opinion undoubtedly checked the development of mediums for
the phenomena. Grief and indignation succeeded the wild cre-
dulity that had made innocent parties responsible for acts, the
interpretation of which was to be found in a purely scientific
study of the matter, free from all religious prepossession.

The marvels of witchcraft, as they were developed in Salem,

PHENOMENA OF WITCHCRAFT. IO5

and are recorded by Upham, were of the same class with those
phenomena which the present writer and thousands of other
persons have witnessed, during the last thirty years, in cases of
somnambulism, whether induced by mesmerism or independent
of that influence, and, in the more recent manifestations, through
persons called mediums. In the Salem phenomena there were
violent convulsions of the bodies of those afflicted, especially
when the «upposed witch was near. There were surprising and
apparently superhuman exhibitions of muscular strength. Vio- *
lent motions in objects around, as if attracted and impelled by
some mysterious force, were witnessed. A staff, an iron hook,
shoes, keys, and even a chest, were seen to move, as if tossed by
an invisible hand. A bed, on which a sufterer lay, shook most
violently, even when several persons were seated on it. Stones
were hurled against houses and persons : articles of iron, pewter,
and brass were tossed about, a candlestick being thrown down,
a spit flying up chimney, and a pressing-iron, a stirrup, and
even a small anchor, being moved ; of which facts many persons
were eye-witnesses.

Mysterious rappings were also heard. Audible scratchings
on the bedstead of a person affected were made. A drumming
on the boards was heard; and a voice seemed to say, "We
knock no more I we knock no more ! " A frying-pan rang so
loud that the people at a hundred yards' distance heard it.
Sounds as of steps on the chamber-floor were heard. Divers
noises as of the clattering of chairs and stools were heard in an
adjoining room. Very varied are these instances.

Wonderful potvers of thought and grace of expression were
exhibited by the most ignorant and uneducated, and by persons
of ordinary, and even of small, mental capacity. Of one person
it is recorded, ** He had a speech incessant and voluble, and, as
was judged, in various languages." Of a little girl it is men-
tioned, " She argued concerning death, with paraphrases on the
thirty-first Psalm, in strains that quite amazed us."

Cases of mysterious knowledge, like those now called clairvoy-
ance, are reported, even by the coolest witnesses. Brattle men-

zo6

PLANCHETTB.

tions that several persons were accused by the afflicted whom
the afflicted never had known." Little girls thus affected de-
scribed, as their tormentors, persons they had never seen ; and by
these descriptions the parents or friends of the girls sought out
the accused, even in remote places.

Perhaps the most consistent explanation of this implication of
innocent persons, by the children, and others who were the
mediums on the occasion, is, that they were under the control of
mischievous and malignant spirits, who found their pleasure in
fixing suspicion on the wrong parties.

If we may believe Swedenborg, spirits are very human in their
weaknesses. In his spiritual diary, he says, "When spirits
begin to speak with 'man, he must beware, lest he believe them
in any thing; for they say almost any thing. Things are fabri-
cated by them, and they lie. ... If man then listens and be-
lieves, they press on, and deceive and seduce in divers ways."

Of one of the little daughters of John Goodwin, of Boston,
Mather says, " Perceiving that her troublers understood Latin,
some trials were thereupon made whether they understood
Greek and Hebrew, which, it seems, they also did; but the
Indian languages they did not seem so well to understand."

We have repeatedly known a medium to be lifted in her chair
from the floor on to a table, where there was no means of its
being done by any known human agency, or mechanical con-
trivance. How like is this to the testimony of respectable citi-
zens of Boston in 1693, in the case of Margaret Rule! "I do
testify," says Samuel Aves, " that I have seen Margaret Rule
lifted up from her bed, wholly by an invisible force, a great
way towards the top of the room where she lay." " We can
also testify to the substance of what is above written," say Robert
Earle, John Wilkins, and Daniel Williams. " We do testify" —
to a precisely similar occurrence, say Thomas Thornton and
William Hudson.*

" We have in history," says Calmet, " several instances of
persons full of religion an.d piety, who, in the fervor of their

• See Calef s " More Wonders of the Invisible World," p. 75.

LffVITATION.

orisons, have been taken up into the air, and have remained
there for some time. We have known a good monk, who rises
sometimes from the ground, and remains suspended, without
wishing it. I know a nun to whom it has happened, in spite of
herself, to be thus raised up."

He mentions the same thing as occurring to St. Philip of Neri,
St. Catherine Colembina, and to Loyola, who was " raised up
from the ground to the height of two feet, while his body shone
like light."

Savonarola, before his tragical death at the stake, and while
absorbed in devotion, was seen to remain suspended at a con-
siderable height from the floor of his dungeon. " The historical
evidence of this fact," says Elihu Rich, in the " Encyclopaedia
Metropolitan a," " is admitted by his recent biographer."

Indeed, the authentic instances of this phenomenon are far too
numerous to mention.

Of certain children supposed to be bewitched, Mr. Upham
writes, " The convulsions and paroxysms of these girls ; their
eyes remaining fixed, bereft of all light and expression; their
screams, the sounds of the motions and voices of the invisible
beings they heard ; their becoming pallid before apparitions, of
course seen only by themselves, &c., — were the result of trickery,
was nothing but acting, but such perfect acting as to make all
who witnessed their doings to believe it to be real. They would
address and hold colloquy with spectres and ghosts; and the
responses of the unseen beings would be audible to the fancy of
the bewildered crowd. . . . But none could discover any
imposture in the girls, . . . who had by long practice become
wonderful adepts in the art of jugglery and probably of ventril-
oquism."

According to Mr. Upham, the witchcraft which manifested
itself in Salem, in 1692, was attributable ** to childish sportive-
ness ; to the mischievous proceedings of the children in the Rev.
Mr. Parris's family " !

There is an incredulity which it requires a good deal of cre-
dulity to arrive at in the face of notorious facts. Even the

io8

PLANCHETTE.

"Edinburgh Review" — eulogistic as it is, and, for the most part,
justly, of Mr. Upham — rebukes him for confining his view,
almost exclusively, to the theory of fraud and falsehood, as
affording the true key in dealing with these phenomena.

** Mr. Upham," s&ys the reviewer, " is evidently very far indeed
from understanding or suspecting how much light is thrown on
the darkest part of his subject, by physiological researches car-
ried on to the hour when he laid down his pen. ... In another
generation, the science of the human frame may have advanced
far enough to elucidate some of the Salem mysteries, together
with some obscure facts in all countries, which cannot be denied,
while as yet they cannot be understood."

So far so good. But the reviewer, while reluctantly admitting
facts that Spiritualism has forced upon the attention of the
world, cannot avoid going out of his way to speak an ill word
of those who have adopted the spiritual hypothesis, and to
bring against them the charge of making several thousand luna-
tics for our asylums ; a charge which the statistics of those asy-
lums have repeatedly disproved, and which, if it were true,
would be no argument against the prosecution of truth, any
more than the fact that many thousands become insane from
religious excitement would be an argument against religion.

Dr. Maudsley, a writer quoted with approval by the reviewer,
shows the absurdity of thus charging a morbid tendency of the
brain, ending in insanity, upon the mere topic, toward which
the mind may have directed itself at a certain time. This
"topic" may be dengunced by shallow observers as the exciting
cause ; but a deeper diagnosis will prove that the true cause lay
in the cerebral cells.

The reviewer calls the Spiritualists " a company of fanatics,
. . . who can form no conception of the modesty and patience
requisite for the sincere search for truth, . . . who wander in a
fool's paradise," . . . and who are " partly answerable for the
tekw«rdness " of conservative men of science.

•^Wbo excuses accuses," says the proverb ; and the reviewer's
^■iify for the men of science will be accepted only by simple-

FRIGHTENED BY AN HYPOTHESIS. IO9

tons. Here for twenty years have the Spiritualists been pro-
claiming certain facts and phenomena, which they have called
upon the savans to investigate. The hypothesis as to the origin
of these facts, whether mundane or ultra-mundane, had nothing
to do with the facts themselves. A man who sees Mr. Home
lifted to the ceiling may believe it was done by a spirit, or by
a latent force in the individual himself, or in the surrounding
spectators. All that Spiritualists have said has been, "Come
and see the fact, and explain it then as you please. But do not
denounce us as dupes and fanatics for believing the testimony
of our senses. Do not expect us to be laughed out of the ver-
dict of our own faculties, as poor Sir David Brewster was, after
seeing the table move."

This, it is well known, has been the position of all intelligent
Spiritualists ; there being many, so-called, who believe simply
in the facts, without attempting to explain them. And now the
** Edinburgh Review," seeing that the time is coming when it
must prepare for a change of base in regard to these facts (as it
has done in regard to mesmerism), charges it upon the so-called
Spiritualists, that by their hypothesis they have frightened off
investigation ! Bold investigators they must be who can be ter-
rified by an hypothesis.

The late Dr. William T. G. Morton, *vhen he was told that sul-
phuric ether would produce, insensibility to pain, w^t on fear-
lessly and tested the fact, and became a great discoverer. As
the "Edinburgh Review" would have said of him, "He could
form no conception of the modesty and patience requisite for the
sincere search for truth."

When Kate Fox heard the raps, she said, "Do as I do," and
found that they were regulated by intelligence. She, too, could
form no conception of this vaunted " modesty and patience."
She imagined an hypothesis: she tried it; and the result was
the production of the phenomenon.

Subsequent investigators into the phenomena have followed
her example. They have interrogated the invisible power, what-
ever it may be, producing the manifestations ; and, by adopting

' PLANCHETTE.

the hypothesis that it was intelligent, and could answer ques-
tions, they have found that it could do so ; and they have arrived
at great results, just as other discoverers have, by simply leaning
on an hypothesis.

And so when this learned reviewer charges Spiritualism with
" deluding and disporting itself with a false hypothesis about
certain mysteries of the human mind," he merely utters words
of resentment that have no philosophical significance. He
might as well abuse Columbus for finding America through
the false hypothesis of its being the eastern end of Asia. If an
hypothesis is adequate to the desired result, what absurdity to
denounce a man for using it as a temporary scaffolding on which
to mount !

"Hypotheses," says Novalis, "are nets: only he who throws
them out will catch any thing."

But for the earnestness of investigators, a large class of facts,
discovered, or, rather, rediscovered, by Spiritualism, would
have been relegated to the oblivion where they have lain for
ages. To this day, it has been a constant warfare on the part
of Spiritualists, to establish these facts. Men of science and of
learning, with here and there an exception, have done all they
could to discredit and crush them out.

And now, when the facts number their believers by millions,
and it beg^s to be impossible to ignore them longer, the
"Edinburgh Review" — while it timidly admits some of the
least remarkable of them — would blacken with its harmless
ink the fair fame of the men through whose intrepidity, fidelity
to truth, and impenetrability to precisely such sneers as the
reviewer's, those pregnant facts have become the property of
science once more.

And he stigmatizes these men as " fanatics " I Is he aware in
what company the fanatics now find themselves ? Not to mention
those eminent men of the last generation, — such as Lavater, the
physiognomist; Schubert, the philosopher; Goethe, Zschokke,
GSrres, Oberlin, Von Meyer, Ennemoser, Kerner, and many
others, who were Spiritualists before the phenomena of 1848, —

CHARLES H. FOSTER.

Ill

we need but refer to the late Archbishop Whately, the late Lord
Lyndhurst, the late Mr. Senior, the late Mr. Thackeray, the late
Mrs. Browning, and other distinguished persons, by whom these
phenomena were accepted as spiritual. Cardinal Wiseman ad-
mits them. So do Professor De Morgan, Mr. Robert Chambers ;
Bishop Clark, of Rhode Island ; Mr. Varley, the electrician ; the
eloquent Jules Favre, a member of the French Academy ; Gari-
baldi, Mazzini, and hundreds of eminent men, towards whom for
this reviewer to affect contempt, would be simply ridiculous.

But it is only a short distance in the admission of facts that
he has as yet gone. When, by and by, he is compelled to go
further, and to accept the most surprising of the phenomena
recorded in this volume, and to abandon his complacent theory
that the marvels which Spiritualists proclaim are merely the
chimera of "an objective world of their own subjective experi-
ence," he will, we hope, be a little more cautious in his sneers at
men who, if they had heeded such ridicule as his, would long
since have been checked in the investigation of facts, so repug-
nant to the preconceived notions of quarterly reviewers.

We refer to Mr. Upham's book, simply to call attention to the
fact, that in his own town of Salem, at the very time he was
writing a history of witchcraft, in which he sets down as delu-
sions and tricks certain phenomena that were established as
true in the minds of judges, juries, clergymen, and magistrates,
by the overwhelming amount of evidence that was adduced,
there lived (1865-68), hardly a stone's throw from his own
house, a young man of the name of Charles H. Foster, born
in Salem, 1838, through whom similar phenomena, quite as
remarkable as any in the annals of witchcraft, might have been
witnessed and fairly tested. Mr. Upham must have known of
him by reputation ; for Mr. Foster was and is widely celebrated,
both in America and England, for his marvellous displays of a
knowledge such as we call spiritual^ inasmuch as it far tran-
scends all that we can conceive of in our normal state of con-
sciousness, as accessible to our bodily senses.

When Justinus Kerner was investigating (1826), through

112

PLANCHETTE.

Madame HaufF<^ (the Seeress of Prevorst), phenomena belong-
ing to the same group with those of modern Spiritualism, the
critics and reviewers, he tells us, instead of coming to see the
facts for themselves, as they were invited, all rushed home,
mounted their high stools, and began to write against the phe-
nomena and everybody connected with them.

So has it been with Spiritualism ; and now it looks as if the
reviewers could never forgive the despised "fanatics" for get-
ting hold of facts in advance of them, and making them commit
themselves against them.

Of our own experiences with Mr. Foster, we will record only
one class ; but with this we have repeatedly been made familiar,
both at his rooms and our own house. We have reason to
believe that there are several thousand persons at this time, in
America and England, who could confirm our experience by
their own with the same medium.

Some time in 1861, seeing Mr. Foster's advertisement in the
newspapers, we called on him at his temporary boarding-place,
near the United-States Hotel in Boston. We had intimated our
purpose to no one, either at the moment or previously. We had
been asked by no one to attend. We had never seen Mr. Foster.
He had never seen us, as he said and as we believe. We sought
him simply in his capacity of a professional medium to test his
powers.

He was alone in a small room, and we two remained alone
during the sitting. The room was about 15 by 15, with two
windows looking on the area back of the house. The curtains
were up. It was noonday. There was no possibility of decep-
tion.

At his request, we wrote twelve names of departed friends on
twelve scraps of paper, and rolled the scraps into pellets. We
were at liberty to use our own paper, or to tear from what was
lying on the table. Mr. Foster walked away from us while we
wrote; and we were careful that he should not see even the
motion of our hand.

The paper we used was fine as tissue paper. We folded, and then

PROOFS OF CLAIRVOYANCE.

rolled up each piece separately, and pressed it till it was hardly
larger than a common grape-stone. We placed the pellets on
the uncovered mahogany of the table, and mixed them up. Mr.
Foster ran his fingers rapidly over them, without taking up any
one of them. Then, almost instantly, he pushed one after the
other towards us, and, as he did so, gave us, without pause or
hesitation, name after name, until he came to one which was
a name so unusual, that we know of but two persons alive
at this moment who bear it. "The name of this person will
appear on my arm," said Mr. Foster; and, rolling up his sleeve,
he showed us the name Arria, in conspicuous red letters, on the
skin of his left arm.

He had given the names on eight of the pellets correctly in
their order.

Having had enough to astonish us for one sitting, we did not
ask him to do more that day. On many subsequent occasions,
similar tests of power were given to us by Mr. Foster.

In this experiment it was impossible that he could get his
knowledge from our mind. This is a favorite theory of the
scoffers ; but it will not apply here. We knew, it is true, the
names that were on the pellets ; but the pellets were so mixed up
that we could not have told which was which, had our life de-
pended on it. We might have guessed right once ; but to do it
eight times in succession was hardly in the range of possibil-
ity.

Where did Mr. Foster get the faculty of telling us what was
written on each of those pellets ?

In a pellet on which we had written the name of George Bush^
we had added, as a further test of Mr. Foster's clairvoyance,
these words: "Are these things truly from human spirits ?"
Seizing a pencil, Mr. F., with a nervous rapidity, wrote off the
following reply before the pellet had been opened, and before we
knew the name that was on it: "These communications are
truly from the spirit-world. And is it not a glorious thought
thus to be able to communicate with the beloved ones who have
gone to the far-off spirit-land?" This, though not an exact

PLANCHETTE.

Ttp\y to the inquiry, was near enough to excite astonishment.
To Rufus Dawes, we wrote, ** Old friend, what shall I think
of it?" The reply was, "Think it is all right now. It is a
boon given to man to prove to him the immortality of the soul.
[Signed] Rufus."

The replies do not afford any satisfactory evidence of spirit
identity, nor were the questions framed with that view; but
what explanation can we give of the faculty that could read in
every particular pellet, rolled into illegibility as it was, the
name and the question ?

The venerable John Ashburner, of London, editor of Reich-
cnbach*s " Dynamics of Magnetism," and long one of the most
successful practising physicians in England, has given a narra-
tive of his experiences in the presence of Mr. Foster. As many
of these accord with our own, we give them in preference to
extracts from our own notes.

*' I have myself," says Dr. Ashburner, " so often witnessed
spiritual manifestations that I could not, if I were inclined, put
aside the evidences which have come before me. When Mr.
Charles Foster was in London, in 1863, he was often in my
house; and numerous friends had opportunities of witnessing
the phenomena which occurred in his presence. . . . The second
morning that he called on me was about two weeks after his
arrival in England. Accidentally, at the same time arrived at
my door Lady C. H. and her aunt, wife of the Rev. A. E. I
urged them to come in, and placed them on chairs at the sides
of my dining-table. Their names had not been mentioned ; Mr.
Foster having retired to the further extremity of the room, so as
not to be able to see what the ladies wrote. I induced them each
to write, upon separate slips of paper, six names of friends who
had departed this world. These they folded into pellets, which
were placed together.

♦* Mr. Foster, coming back to the table, immediately picked up
a pellet, and addressing himself to Mrs. A. E., * Alice,* he said,
which made the lady start, and ask how he knew her name.
He replied, * Your cousin, John Whitney, whose name you wrote

DR. ASHBURNER'S TESTIMONY.

on that little piece of paper, stands by your side, and desires me
to say, that ha often watches over you, and reads your thoughts,
which are always pure and good. He is delighted at the tender-
ness and care which you exhibit in the educJition of your chil-
dren.' Then he turned towards me, and said, * Alice's uncle is
smiling benignantly, as he is looking towards you. He says,
you and he were very intimate friends.' I said, * I should like
to know the name of my friend ; ' and Mr. Foster instantly re-
plied *Gaven. His Christian name will appear on my right
arm.'

*' The arm was bared ; and there appeared, in red letters, fully
one inch and a quarter long, the name William raised on the
skin of his arm. Certainly, William Gaven was my dear old
friend, and the uncle of the lady whose name is Alice. How,
without yielding to the truth of the assertion of Mr. Foster, that
he was a discerner of spirits, the fact could be known to a com-
plete stranger, who had all his life resided in America, and could
know nothing, even of the names of the ladies whom I had
brought into my dining-room from the street-door, where I
had accosted them, their names not having been known to my
servants, is a phenomenon well calculated to puzzle the intellect
of any one not having faith in Spiritualism. Mr. Foster's arm
retained, on the surface of his skin, the raised, red letters for fully
five minutes. I applied a powerful magnifying lens over them,
and my two young friends and I watched them until they sub-
sided and disappeared. It has been said that the skin was
scratched by a pointed lead-pencil, and I knew some persons
who wrote on their arms, and succeeded in raising red letters ;
but the letters did not so quickly subside, and in some instances
left sore scratches, marks or tokens of the want of common
sense.

Mr. Foster next addressed himself to Lady C, whom he had
never seen before in his life, until he met her in my dining-room.

*Your mother,' said he, * the Marchioness of , stands by

your side, and desires to give you her fond blessing and very
affectionate love.* He added, * Lady C, you wrote on a piece

ii6

PLANCHKTTE.

of paper I hold here the name of Miss Stuart. She stands by
the side of your mother, and is beaming with delight at the
sight of her pupil. She was your governess, and was much
attached to you.' He added, *That charming person, the
Marchioness, was a great friend of the doctor's. She is so
pleased to find you all here ! Her Christian name is to appear
on my arm.* Mr. Foster drew up his sleeve, and there appeared
in raised, red letters, on the skin, the name Barbara, which
subsided and disappeared gradually, as the former name William
had done. Here were cases in which it was quite impossible
that the medium could have known any single fact relating to
the families or to the intimacies of any of the persons present.
I had myself formed his acquaintance only two days, and the
ladies had arrived from a part of the country with which he
could not possibly be acquainted. It may be inquired very fairly,
how it is proposed to connect such a narrative with any philo-
sophical view of our mental functions ? One need be at no
loss for a reply ; but it is more advisable at present to multiply
our facts.

"My father was, in his youth, addicted to the pursuit of
knowledge, and besides physics and chemistry, although he
never proposed to become a professional physician, he studied
anatomy at the Borough Hospitals, and had the late Mr. Cline
for his teacher, and Sir Astley Cooper for his fellow-student.
Mr. Foster had passed his life of twenty-four years in America.
The son of a captain in a merchant ship, sailing from and to the
port of Salem, in Massachusetts, he had never heard of Sir
Astley Cooper. One evening, in my drawing-room, a hand, as
palpable sis my own hand, appeared a little above the table, and
soon rested gently upon the thumb and four fingers on the sur-
face of it. Several persons were seated round the table. Mr.
Foster, addressing me, said, *The person to whom that hand
belongs is a friend of yours. He is a handsome man, with a
portly presence, and is very much gratified to see you, and to
renew his acquaintance with you. Before He mentions his name,
he would like to know if you remember his calling your father

DR. ASHBURNEr's TESTIMONY. II7

his old friend, and yourself his young friend.* I had forgotten
it; but I remembered it the moment the name was mentioned.
* He calls himself Sir Astley Cooper,* said Mr. Foster, * and
wishes me to tell you, that certain spirits havfe the power, by the
force of will, of creating, from elements of organic matter in
the atmosphere, fac-similes of the hands they possessed on
earth.* Shortly, the hand melted into air. Then Mr. Foster
said, * Two friends of yours desire to be remembered to you.
They accompany Sir Astley Cooper: one was a military sur-
geon, and went to Canada. He was at Edinburgh your fellow-
student. He calls himself Bransby Cooper. The other was
your intimate friend, George Young, who has communicated
with you once before, since he left your sphere.*

** It would not be difficult to multiply facts relating to the
spiritual manifestations of this very extraordinary medium.
M^ friend, Sir William Topham, well known among all who
have investigated mesmeric phenomena, as the person who
induced on Wombwell, at the Wellow Hospital, that profound
unconscious sleep, which enabled Mr. Squire Wood to amputate
a most excruciatingly painful limb, above the knee, without the
patient's knowledge, asked me to give him the opportunity of
inquiring minutely into the phenomena, respecting which our
friend EUiotson * and I were so completely divided in opinion.
Sir William, with the concurrence of Foster, fixed an early day
for dinner. There were only the three of us at the dinner-table.
The servant placed the soup- tureen on the table. No sooner
had I helped my friends to soup, than Sir William, who had
preferred the seat with his back to the fire, requested permission
to alter his mind, as the fire was too much for him. He went to
the opposite side of the table, forgetting to take his napkin with
him. Immediately, a hand, apparently as real as the hand of
any one of us, appeared, and lifted the napkin into the air gently
and gracefully, and then dropped it carefully on the table.

* EUiotson, as we have already seen, after having been a materialist up to hit
seventieth year, came round finally to Ashbumer's views of the phenomena, and died
a happy believer in them.

ii8

PLANCHETTE.

Almost simultaneously, while we were still engaged over our
soup, one side of the dining-table was lifted up, as our philo-
sophic friend Mr. Faraday would conclude, by unseen and
unconscious muscular energy ; and the moderator lamp did not
fall from its place on the centre of the table. The decanters,
saltcellars, wineglasses, knives and forks, water-carafes, tum-
blers, all remained as they were in their places : no soup was
spilled; and Faraday's unconscious muscular force, or some
correlative or conserved agency, prevented the slightest change
among the correlative ratios of the table furniture, although the
top sloped to very nearly an angle of forty-five degrees. There
was a wonderful conservation of my glass, china, and lamp.
The servant who was waiting upon us stared, lifting up both
arms, exclaimed, * Law! well, I never! ' and the next minute he
cried out, * Do, do look at the pictures ! * which, with their ten
heavy frames, had appeared to strive how far they could quit the
wall, and endeavor to reach the dinner-table.

** The appearance of hands was by no means an unusual phe-
nomenon. One evening, I witnessed the presence of nine hands
floating over the dining-table.

" On one occasion, the Hon. Mrs. W. C. and her sister-in-law
desired to try some experiments in my dunker kamer, a room
the Baron von Reichenbach had taught me how to darken
properly for experiments on the od force and the odic light
emanating from living organized bodies. This room afforded
opportunities for marvellous manifestations. When the light
was excluded, the two ladies were seated on one side of a heavy
rosewood occasional table with drawers, weighing at least seventy
or eighty pounds ; Mr. Foster and I were on chairs opposite to
them. Suddenly a great alarm seized Mr. Foster: he grasped
my right hand, and beseeched me not to quit my hold of him ;
for he said there was no knowing where the spirits might convey
him. I held his hand, and he was floated in the air towards the
ceiling. At one time, Mrs. W. C. felt a substance at her head,
and, putting up her hands, discovered a pair of boots above her
head. At last Mr. Foster's atrial voyage ceased, and a new

MR. c. H. Foster's mediumship. 119

phenomenon presented itself. Some busts, as large as life, rest-
ing upon book cupboards seven feet high, were taken from their
places. One was suddenly put upon Mrs. W. C.'s lap ; others,
on my obtaining a light, were found on the table. I removed
these to a corner of the room, and put out the light. Then the
table was lifted into the air, and there remained for some seconds.
Then it gently descended into the place it had before occupied, with
the difference that the top was turned downwards, and rested on
the carpet. The ladies were the first to perceive that the brass
casters were upwards.

** One of these ladies had missed, on another occasion, her
pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Foster told her she would find it in the
conservatory behind the back drawing-room. It was behind a
flower-pot. Mrs. W. C. went up-stairs, and found the handker-
chief in the spot indicated. A similar event happened a second
time. The question was. How the pocket-handkerchief could
travel from the dining-room, all doors being shut, to the floor
above; where it was deposited on a shelf in the conservatory.
Mr. Faraday would aver that my facts were corroborative of his
conservation of force.

"In that back drawing-room stands a heavy Broadwood's
semi-grand pianoforte. Mr. Foster, who is possessed of a fine
voice, was accompanying himself while he sang. Both feet were
on the pedals, when the pianoforte rose into the air, and was
gracefully swung in the air from side to side, for at least five or
six minutes. During this time, the casters were about at the
height of a foot from the carpet."

Mr. Foster's first indications of mediumship took place when
he was about fourteen years old, at the Phillips school in Salem,
where his attention was arrested by raps near him on his desk
during school-hours. The next change was to violent noises
near his Jbed at night, which at once awakened him, and brought
his parents into his room, where the furniture was found tossed
about in all directions. At first this happened only in the dark;
but soon it came in the light, and furniture would be heard
moving about in rooms where no person in the flesh was
present.

I20

PLANCHETTE.

At his manifestations on one occasion, when letters were
coming on his skin, two men seized him rudely by the arm to
discover the trick, as they called it. " We know," said they,
" that no letters will come on the arm while we hold it." " What
will you have?" asked Foster. *' Something that will be a test,"
cried they; "something that will fit our case." Immediately,
while they were" holding the arm, as in a vice, and glaring^iipoh
it with all their eyes, appeared in large round characters the
words, Iwo fools I

Of this phenomenon of stigmata on the flesh, the instances are
numerous and thoroughly authenticated. Ennemoser, Passa-
vent, Schubert, and other eminent German physiologists, admit
the fact as not only established as regards many of the so-called
saints of the Catholic Cliurch, but in undoubted modern in-
stances, as in the case of the ecstaticas of the Tyrol, Catherine
Emmerich, Maria Dorl, and Domenica Lazzari, all of whom
exhibited the stigmata. The signatures of the foetus are anal-
ogous facts; and if the mind of the mother can act on an-
other organism, why, it is asked, should not the minds of
mediums act on their own ? The fact of the phenomenon
has been placed by testimony beyond the dispute of any but
the ignorant. We have witnessed it repeatedly under circum-
stances where to doubt would have been to reject all rational
proof as worthless.

We have spoken of the Salem phenomena of 1692, as analo-
gous with those of 1868. While we write, additional proof of
this is offered. Indeed, the candid chronicler will find himself
embarrassed by the number of confirmatory narratives, old and
new.

In July, 1868, occurrences of an inexplicable character took
place in the house of a Mr. Travis at Thorney, a small hamlet
near Muchelney, and about two miles from the town of Lang-
port, in England. The following account is from the " Bristol
[Eng.] Daily Post," of August, 1868 : " It is said that even the
walls shake at times ; while the doors and windows are opened
and closed again very frequently in a most forcible manner.

THE MUCHELNEY DISTURBANCES. 121

Pillows and bolsters are taken from beneath the occupants of
beds. Noises, ranging from the reports of many muskets to the
distant boom of a field-piece, are heard in different parts of
the house. Scores of persons attest the accuracy of these state-
ments. Most of them avow that no human agency could do
what they have seen done and escape detection. If there is
any thing true in the doctrines which the Spiritualists preach,
they may make converts by the hundred in this neighbor-
hood."

Another English journal, the "Western Gazette," of July 31,
x868, describing these occurrences, remarks, " Of course, a great
philosopher cannot be expected to investigate a * trumpery ghost
story,* or a * silly tale of a haunted house.* He knozvs that it is
impossible for a table to move without hands; and it would,
therefore, be only a waste of his valuable time to inquire whether
a table has ever done so or not. This, we fear, is the view
which too many of our all-knowing savans will take of the
Muchelney business. But is such a view truly philosophical ? Do
we know every thing yet? Are there no natural laws or forces
yet to be discovered? — no exceptions, or apparent exceptions, to
the operation of known laws to be determined?

" We may safely assert that it is impossible that one and one
can ever make three, or that the three angles of a triangle can
ever make more or less than two right angles ; but, once clear of
mathematics, we can never be safe in using the word * impossi-
ble.*

"A generation that sees two men on opposite sides of the
globe, conversing with each other by means of an ubiquitous
agent, that is known only by its effects, can surely believe in
almost any thing, except the incorrectness of the multiplication-
table.

**We have no well-defined theory on the subject of these
phenomena; but we are convinced that there is no trickery in
this case ; that the phenomena are due to causes of which science
has, as yet, taught us nothing ; and that we should act in an un-
philosophical spirit if we rejected the evidence of our own and

122

PLANCHETTE.

Others* senses because of its apparent inconsistency with the lit-
tle which we happen to know of nature's laws."

How much longer will a false conservatism think to put out of
existence verified facts, like these, by uttering its shrill negative
cry, shutting its eyes, and burying its ostrich head in the sand!

We have no sooner come to the last page of this Chapter, than
a man of science, Mr. Jencken (see page loo), communicates to
the public, under date of January, 1869, a statement that, at a
recent meeting of several gentlemen, at Ashley House, London
(all of whom are ready to verify this account), Mr. Home was
lifted by some unknown force four feet off the ground. Travel-
ling thus, suspended in space, he made a circuit round those in
the room. The levitation lasted from four to five minutes. His
trance state changing, Mr. Home opened the door and went into
the corridor. A voice then said, *' He will go out of this win-
dow and come in at that window." The only one who heard the

voice was the Hon. ; and he shuddered at the thought

of a feat which the great height of the third-floor windows ren-
dered more than ordinarily perilous. The others present, how-
ever, having closely questioned him as to what he had heard, he
at first replied, "I dare not tell you; " when, to the amazement
of all, a voice said, "You must tell; tell directly." The Hon.

then said, "Yes, yes! terrible to say, he will go out

at that window and come in at this; do not be frightened, be
quiet." Mr. Home now re-entered the room, and opening the
drawing-room window, was pushed out demi-horizontally into
space, and carried from one window of the drawing-room to the
furthermost window of the adjoining room. This feat being
performed at a height of about eighty feet from the ground,
naturally caused a shudder in all present.

"Is it not pitiable," asks Mr. J., "that the scientific world
should keep aloof and refuse to investigate marvellous phe-
nomena like these?"

CHAPTER VI.

VARIOUS MEDIUMS AND MANIFESTATIONS.

" Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. . . . Have all the gifts of
healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?" — 5"/. Paul.

HE number of persons in the United States through whom

phenomena similar to those in the case of Mr. Home and
of Mr. Foster have taken place, is now so large, that to mention
them all would almost require a volume. Charles Colchester,
young and of a fine personal appearance, but wayward and infirm
of purpose, like many similar sensitives, gave us several sittings,
at which he manifested remarkable powers, not unlike those of
Mr. Foster.

We know not how true it is, but Mr. Colchester told us, that
on his meeting Hermann, the celebrated frestidigitateur-t the
latter said to him, ** If you can give me the name of my father,
I will believe that your intelligence is preternatural } for no per-
son in America, I am convinced, knows that name." Colchester
at once wrote out the name, Samuel Hermann Radesky ; and
Hermann said it was right.

Mr. William Ambisy Colby relates (July 6, 1861) that he
called on Colchester in New York. " I first asked him," says
Mr. Colby, "if he could tell me what I had lost. He told me I
had lost a pocket-book with papers in it of no value ; that it was
picked from my pocket in a Broadway stage. I then told him
that he was mistaken; for there was a paper amongst them
of value. * Oh, no I * s^id Colchester, * I am not mistaken ; but it
\%you who are mistaken. The paper you have reference to is a
check for $3x5, which, instead of putting in your wallet, you put

124

PLANCHETTE.

in jour hat, inside the lining.' I immediately looked in mj hat;
and) sure enough, the check was there, just where Colchester told
me it was."

Here, surely, was information, on the medium's part, quite
independent of any conscious knowledge in the mind of the
inquirer. Yet how often we are told, that the medium's knowl-
edge is always got from the mind of the inquirer!

In a letter to our friend, Mr. Coleman, of London, Professor
W. D. Gunning writes (1868) from Boston, as follows in regard
to Mrs. Cushman, a medium who resides in Charlestown,
Mass. : ** I visited her house in company with a Boston clergy-
man. A guitar was laid on my knees, and after a few minutes
lifted up, held in the air, and played upon by unseen hands.
This was in full daylight. The concert lasted an hour. It was
utterly impossible for the lady to touch the strings. No mortal,
under the circumstances, could have made the music. Of this
we were both satisfied. We did not decide hastily, but only
after the fullest investigation. Now, the agent that played the
guitar, whatever it was, acted wonderfully like a human being.
We requested a particular tune: it was played; then another:
that was also played ; and so on for an hour. How could we
resist the conviction that here, unseen by us, was a spiritual
being, a man or woman, knowing the music that we knew,
hearing our words or reading our thoughts, and able, under
conditions we may not understand, to move material things.?
* We are compassed about with a cloud of witnesses.' We need
to return to the early faith, the faith of the founders of Chris-
tianity, the faith of all great poets of all ages. This age is
steeped in materialism; but re-action has begun. Men are cry-
ing out for the knowledge of Eternal Life. With the eloquent
Bishop of Rhode Island, I hail this influx from the spirit-world
as a gift of the P^ather, sent in his own good time to his children,
to wean them from doubt, to confirm them in faith, to take away
the sting of death by the knowledge that immortality means no
gauzy abstraction, but real human life."

In the winter of x86o-6i we tested, on some forty occasions,

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH MISS LORD. 1 25

the mediumship of Miss Jennie Lord (now Mrs. Webb), through
whom physical manifestations, of quite a startling character,
were produce^. These took place several times at our own house,
where the possibility of trick or collusion was carefully excluded.
In two or three instances a friend (the same who wrote the
incredulous letter from Rochester in Chapter II. of this volume)
was present, at our invitation ; and once we were present at his,
when the phenomena took place in his own house in Boston.
While the occurrences of the evening were fresh in our minds,
we each wrote an account of them ; and his narrative was after-
wards put in the form of a letter and sent to our mutual friend,
William M. Wilkinson, in England. We subjoin it : —

"Dear Sir, — I wish to send you an account of some spirit-
ual manifestations which I have lately witnessed; and which,
indeed, have been the only experiences of the kind, which I
have had since I saw you in London last June. As you know,
I have been long absent from this city, sojourning in France anti
Italy for four years.

"On my return here, I found that, among my immediate
friends, Spiritualism was regarded as a something dead. But
the' only reason which my informants could give for their belief,
was that they had not heard the subject mentioned for a year or
^wo. However, I asked them, and they smiled when I did so,
whether the northern lights would become incredible by not
being talked about.

"Through a friend, whose name and judgment are a sufficient
guarantee for whatever he may choose to vouch, I heard lately
of a medium whom I had never known before. That medium
is a young fragile woman; Last Tuesday evening she came to
my house. I had some friends to meet her. Altogether for the
fiance, we were eight in number. It was explained to us, that
the medium would pass into a state of trance, and that the room
would have to be darkened. * Oh I * says some skeptic, * a dark
room ! That is enough for me.* Perhaps so ; and perhaps also
it would be enough for him, equally, if it were insisted that

126

PLANCHETTB.

mediumship was impossible in the dark, and possible only in a
yoom all ablaze with light. But, before we advance further,
k will ask this skeptic, why is it that an iron ball will retain heat
'in the dark longer than in the light? And perhaps in ascer-
taining that, he may learn something which may help in the
inquiry, why spiritual mediumship is sometimes stronger or
more effective when the light is excluded?

"There were ranged on a table, about two feet behind the
medium, the articles which it was understood would be in requi-
sition during the evening. About the placing of the articles,
there was no mystery made, nor was any jugglery possible, in
connection with the manner in which they were disposed. We
sat round a table ; and, after a little singing, the medium passed
into a state, apparently, of trance. The expression of her face
was much changed, was much refined and beautified. The last
light was extinguished. All round the table, we held one
another's hands, except the medium ; and she, instead of hold-
ing my hand, laid her hand upon mine, drawing her hand along
it, as though for some mesmeric purpose. Her other hand was
placed similarly on the hand of one of my friends, who sat on
the other side of her.

" For persons hard of belief, I would remark, that if darkness
be unfavorable, in some respects, for detecting imposture, it is
also very unfavorable, in a strange place, for the operations of .
one who would cheat. I wish it too, to be fully understood,
that, throughout all the wonders which happened, we had full
knowledge of each other's hands every moment. Several times
when the phenomena were most remarkable, I said to my friends,
*Now are we all sure, that we, every one, have charge of the
hands which we ought to be holding?' And the answer was,
* Yes : we are all satisfied.'

"A bell was carried round the room, ringing; was rung over
our heads, and was placed against my cheek. A guitar was
played upon, as it was carried about the room. It was laid on
our hea(ds and pl^ed upon. It was whirled over our heads
so rapidly, that we felt the wind of it, ^s it went round and

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH MISS LORD. 1 27

round. It was rapped on the heads of five or six persons ; it
was rattled among the glasses of the chandelier; it was struck
on the floor, and thrown on to the table, — and all this, as it
seemed, in a moment. The quick, versatile movement of the
instrument I can liken to nothing so much as to the darting of
a fly to and fro.

"A glass of water was placed to my lips, in the neatest manner
possible ; and I drank from it. And it was carried round to the
lips of other persons at the table. A tambourine was beaten as
it was borne about the room. It was struck on our heads; and
it was shaken above us with great force. A horn was blown,
and made a noise almost terrific. With several, of us a sheet of
paper was spread over the face, aTid through it we felt distinctly
the pressure of a hand. A hand, without any thing interven-
ing, was placed on my head. It was a large hand ; and it
grasped my head 'firmly, and shook it. It took hold of a lock
of hair over my forehead, and pulled it. That these things were
not done by persons of flesh and blood, I know thoroughly
well.

*'I have an acquaintance, who was wont to be a very fierce
and bitter opponent of Spiritualism. He used to account medi-
umship as an imposture, a transparent and a gross impos-
ture; a most cunning imposture; and also a most simple kind
of imposture. Now, lately he said to me, * Blowing a horn,
playing a guitar! What is the good of that?'

**I answered him, *My friend, I did not say there was any
good in it. I merely said there was a fact in it, and that fact,
the operation of a spirit. And if you think that to be nothing,
why, then you must think very differently now Mm what you
did, when the mere supposition that a spirit m%ht rap on the
table used to make you foam with excitem^t, as you re-
member.'

" * Ah, well ! * he said, * but what now do yon think is the use
of it? And why cannot it be done anywhere by anybody?
And if spirits can do such things as you say, why can they
not tell us something useful, whether thesb is going to be a
war*

128

PLANCHETTE.

" * And perhaps jou would add,' I replied, *how to square the
circle, how to be infallible as to latitude and longitude at sea,
and how to find the philosopher's stone. But, my friend, it may
be that many a spirit is less intelligent than you yourself are.
For, when you think of it, what a way to wisdom that would
be, for a spirit to become omniscient with merely slipping off his
overcoat of flesh ! '

***But — but — but why do they not teach us something —
some of them? And is it not true, that they often tell lies?
And, in fact, somehow I can make nothing out of it.'

" To this I answered, * That is very probable ! and no great
wonder. And by the way of mediumship, as to spirits tell-
ing falsehoods, as you suppose they do sometimes, why that
would show at least that there are lying spirits. And that thing
made certain to you as a fact, would be a matter of more impor-
tance, infinitely, than the discovery of twenty new comets. And
now as to a spirit blowing a horn or beating a tambourine,
you think it is nothing. But, for myself, I think that it implies
a spirit present who is the actor ; that it proves that, under cer-
tain circumstances, spirits have power over matter ; and that it
suggests many subjects for the most serious consideration of the
theologian, the moralist, and the man of science.

** I am, yours truly, w. M."

On several occasions we have known Miss Lord to be lifted
bodily with her chair, while she was seated in it, from the floor
on to the table, by some unknown force. In a like mysterious
manner, at our own house, a large bass-viol was played on
vigorously and with fair skill, while the medium's hands were
held by us, and deception was impossible. ** Coronation " and
other sacred tunes were thus played. The potver^ whatever it
was, would, before playing, spend a minute or two in tuning the
instrument, and would then indicate its readiness by tapping
the heads of certain persons in the audience with the bow. A
large, flexible hand, full of life and guided by intelligence, and
which was nearly twice the size of Miss Lord's hand, touched us

PHENOMENA IN PRESENCE OF MISS ELLIS. 1 29

and others repeatedly on the head, pulled our hair, took down
the hair of our sister, and then put it up as before, placed a
tumbler filled with water at our lips, and this at the right angle,
and^with the nicest adjustment, so that not a drop was spilt.
These manifestations, though in utter darkness, were of such a
character, and produced under such conditions, as to render
imposture impracticable.

A writer in ** Once a Week," a London journal, recently under-
took to account for the phenomenon of the " spirit-hand " by the
theory that the effect was accomplished by the aid of an instru-
ment he calls the lazy-tongs. It is perhaps superfluous to say
that his explanation is now obsolete, like the toe-joint theory to
explain the rappings : it does not begin to cover the facts.

Another medium, through whom we hkve witnessed some
astonishing phenomena, though we have not had opportunities
of testing them as thoroughly as those through Miss Lord, is
Miss Laura V. Ellis, of Springfield, Mass. This young lady
was only fourteen at the time we first saw her in the summer of
1866. She entered a small movable cabinet or closet, and while
she was tied there in the most thorough manner, the door was
closed, whereupon, in an incredibly short space of time, various
manifestations requiring the free use of hands or feet took place.
The following account by Mr. L. J. Fuller of a sitting at Willi-
mantic. Conn., February, 1867, corresponds with our own experi-
ence : —

" After Miss Ellis was tied in the usual way .with strips of cloth,
the knots were sewed through and through, and then the ends of
the cloth sewed strongly to the sleeves of her dress ; after which
she was firmly secured in the cabinet, when the following mani-
festations were given : A string was tied around her neck in a
square knot in six seconds; this was repeated twice, with the
same results. A string was tied around the waist in four seconds ;
repeated twice, once in four seconds, and once in three; tied
around the back of her neck in eight seconds ; front of her neck,
fifteen seconds ; repeated in fourteen seconds; untied from her
neck in fifteen seconds; untied from front of neck in three

PLANCHETTE.

seconds ; bell rung in two seconds ; repeated in four seconds ;
loud raps with stick in two seconds; repeated in one second;
stick thrust through the aperture of the cabinet fourteen inches,
and afterward thrown ten feet from the cabinet ; playing on the
tambourine in one second ; playing on the trombone in one sec-
ond; also singing, and keeping time with the trombone;
drununing, whistling, and keepftig time with the jews-harp, and
*pther instruments; besides many other and varied manifesta-
tions. Her hands were then untied and extended horizontally,
and tied to staples, so that by turning the hands toward the head,
which was fastened back to the cabinet, the nearest they could
come to the ends of the knot was twelve inches from them. The
knot was untied the first time in thirty seconds, and the second
time in twenty seconds.

"The whole was done under the closest scrutiny of a commit-
tee of three, no one of whom could detect the slightest evidence
of collusion during the whole entertainment. The medium's
hands were repeatedly examined during the whole time of the
entertainment, and found in the same condition as when first
tied. No show of any effort on her part could by the closest
scrutiny be detected ; and all unprejudiced minds were satisfied
that the manifestations were produced by some power outside of
Miss Ellis."

On another occasion, at Keene, N.H., according to the report
of Mr. Henry Woods, " a trombone, harmonicon, tambourine,
and drum were played, and other feats performed; all these
feats being done while Miss Ellis's wrists were securely tied at
her back, and to the cabinet, her ankles tied, and neck also fas-
tened to the cabinet. Last, but not least, a knife with the blade
shut, having been laid in her lap, was taken and used to cut her
loose from the cabinet, and to disengage her wrists, the knife
being then left half-way open in her lap. Let none say that
these things are accomplished by trickery, until they have been
personal witnesses of the wonderful phenomena presented."

Various attempts have been made tq prove that these pheno-
mena are mere tricks ; and several imitators, some perhaps with

THE IRON RING PHENOMENON.

the partial aid of forces similar to those operating through Miss
Ellis, have undertaken to show that the manifestations could all
be accomplished by manual dexterity; but, thus far, no one has
succeeded in indicating this to the satisfaction of candid com-
mittees. It is not uncommon for partially gifted mediums to try
to excite attention by denouncing the manifestations through
their more successful brethren or sisters as fraudulent; but, when
it comes to the proof, they always fail of proving iu the light, that
all the phenomena can be produced by trick or skill.

Under date of Nov. 24, 1867, Mr. W. A. Danskin, of Balti-
more, Md., gives an account of a youth, about nineteen years
old, and whose head measured twenty-two inches round, from
whose neck a solid iron ring weighing fourteen ounces, and
measuring but fifteen inches on its inner circle, was taken and
replaced. The ring was submitted to the closest inspection, both
before the experiment and while on the neck.

On one occasion another ring, precisely similar in appearance
to the one ordinarily used at the exhibition, was made, marked
by four indentations while the metal was soft, and brought to the
hall, at one of the public exhibitions, without the knowledge of
the medium or his friends. The parties having it in charge
watched their opportunity, and substituted the marked ring for
the original. The manifestation was successfully given, though
the time of it was somewhat extended, and the medium was
much exhausted. •

"Once," says Mr. Danskin, "when only three persons were
present, — the medium, a friend, and myself, — we sat together in
a dark room. I held the left hand of the medium, my friend held
his right hand, our other hands being joined; and, while
thus- sitting, the ring, which I had thrown some distance from
us on the floor, suddenly came around my arm. I had never
loosened my hold upon the medium, yet that solid iron ring, by
an invisible power, was made to clasp my arm, thus demonstrat-
ing the power of our unseen friends to separate and r«-unite, as
well as to expand, the particles of which the ring was com-
posed."

132

PJLANCHETTE.

The following testimonial 18 signed by thirty-one gentlemen
of Baltimore, whose names may be found published in the
"Banner of Light," of Jan. ii, iS68: —

" We, the undersigned, hereby testify that we have attended
the social meetings referred to; and that a solid iron ring, seven
inches less in size than the young man's head, was actually
and unmistakably placed around his neck. There was, as the
advertisement claims, no possibility of fraud or deception,
because the ring was freely submitted to the examination of the
audience, both before and while on the neck of the young
man."

This extraordinary medium died of consumption of the lungs,
July 2, i868. Since his death, Mr. Danskin writes, " The ring
manifestation was entirely free from deception or fr^iud ; and,
under the conditions established, fraud was absolutely impossi-
ble." He is confident that in no single instance did this medium
attempt to impose on any one.

Some surprising manifestations, through Mr. Charles H.
Read, of Buffalo, have been- witnessed during the summer and
autumn of i868. The " Daily Times," of Brooklyn, N.Y., in its
issue of April 3, 1868, has a clear and accurate account of these
phenomena, of which ours is an abridgment.

Precautions were taken against the possible intrusion of any
confederate. Mr. Read was securely tied. The wrists were
made fast until the cord settled well into the flesh ; it was then
drawn between the knees, the ends being carried down with two
well-jammed turns on the front rung of the chair, and then back
to the rear rung, where the end was made fast with several half-
hitches. The arms were secured and tied to the back of the
chair, and the legs fastened at the ankles to the rear legs of
the same. Being seated in position, and at a distance from the
table, the gas was turned off ; and in about one-half of a minute^
on being re-lighted, one of the rings encircled his arm.

The fastenings were instantly examined, and found undis-
turbed. During the dark interval, some s«nging was indulged
in. Supposing a confederate to have beer :»*>le to pass the twine

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH C. IJ. READ. 1 33

barrier without ringing the bell, he could not, in half a minute,
have untied the ropes so as to slip the ring on the arm, and re-
tie them again ; for it required more than five minytes to adjust
them in the first instance, and the same knots could not have
been even simulated. The ring still remaining on the right
arm, the gas was again extinguished ; and in less than a minute
the light revealed the stool on his arm ; or, in other words, the
ring was on the floor, where it had been heard to fall, and
the stool had taken its place. There was no movable ring which
could have been removed so as to slip the stool-leg down between
the arm of the medium and his body. The ropes and knots were
still intact.

Once more was darkness ; and the next revelation was the
medium's coat off and on the floor^ against the wall, at some dis-
tance from his position. The fastenings were again examined :
not the least slackening was found. A further test was made,
and the stool appeared on the other arm.

At the request of the demonstrator, the writer placed his own
coat on the table ; and, in less time than this sentence may be
written, he beheld one of Mr. Read's arms in the sleeve of the
garment, which could not be removed without cutting or untying
the ropes. A moment or two of darkness, however, sufficed to
find it thrown to one side of the apartment. During these demon-
strations the medium seemed to become gradually weak and
exhausted, as if he had been rudely handled. Finally, there was
more darkness ; and in a little more than a minute, counted by a
healthy and regular pulse, there came a sound as of something
thrown aside, which the gas revealed as the rofes on the chande-
lier*

The man was entirely free, and before him dangled the fasten-
ings. His wrists showed deep indentations ; and his hands were
swollen, from partial suspension of the circulation of the blood.
The reader may be assured that in all this -there was not, and
could not be, the slightest collusion. Mr. tiead could not untie
himself, nor could he be approached by a confederate.

Similar phenomena through Mr. Read, accompanied with

134

PLANCHETTE.

touches from spirit-hands,* on the persons of several among the
audience, were witnessed on the evening of Sept. 8, 1868, at
the residence of Mr. Z. A. Willard, of Boston.

Vocal manifestations have been not unfrequent in the
history of supposed spiritual disturbances. Some very singular
occurrences took place in the family of John Richardson, in
Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio, the latter part of the year
1854. The affidavits of himself, his wife, and Mr. James H'.
More, bearing date Jan. 8, 1855, were duly made before Mr.
William J. Bright, a justice of the peace, who, in communicating
them to the public, says, "The facts are of public notoriety
here, and can no doubt be sustained by any amount of evi-
dence."

The wildest doings of the days of witchcraft are paralleled in
the following narrative, which we quote for its explicit testimony
in regard to the vocal manifestations : —

"About five weeks a§o," deposes Mr. Richardson, " my atten-
tion was arrested by a very sharp and loud whistle, seemingly in
a small closet in one corner of my house. This was followed by
loud and distinct raps, as loud as a person could conveniently
rap with the knuckles. The closet- door is secured or fastened
by a wood button that turns over the edge of the door. This
button would frequently turn, and the door open, without any
visible agency. This was followed by a loud and distinct
(apparently) human voice, which could be heard, perhaps, fifty
rods.

"After repeating a very loud and shrill scream several times,
the voice fell to a lower key, and, in a tone about as loud as
ordinary conversation, commenced speaking in a plain and
distinct manner, assuring the family that we would not be
burned, and requesting us to have no fear of any injury, as we
were in no danger. Those manifestations being altogether

• Prof. Denton, the accomplished geologist, author of a remarkable work, entitled
*'The Soul of Things," says, " I have seen spirit-hands over and over again, — have
taken impressions of them in flour and putty and clay." We have a letter from Dr. J.
F. Gray, describmg his examination of a spirit-hand in the light

VOCAL MANIFESTATIONS.

unaccountable to myself and family, we searched the entire
house, to find, if possible, the cause of this new and startling
phenomenon, but found no one in or about the premises but the
family. Again we were startled by a repetition of the screams,
which were repeated perhaps a dozen times, when the voice
proceeded to inform us that the conversation came from the
spirit of two brothers, calling themselves Henry and George
Force, who claim to have been murdered some eleven years
since ; and then gave us what they represented as a history of
the tragedy, and insisted that we should call on some of tne
neighbors, to hear the disclosure. John Ranney, Henry Moore,
and some dozen others, were then called in, to whom the history
was detailed at length. We could readily discover a difference
in the voice professing to come from the two spirits.

" About the third day after these manifestations commenced,
my wife brought a ham of meat into the house, and laid it on
tlffe table, and stepped to the other side of the room, when the
ham was carried by some invisible agency from four to six feet
from the table, and thrown upon the floor. At another time, a
bucket of water was, without human hands, taken from the table,
carried some six feet, and poured upon the floor. This was
followed by a large dining-table turning round from its position
at the side of the room, and being carried forward to the stove,
a distance of more than six feet. This was done while there was no
person near it. The same table has, since that time, been thrown
on its side without human agency, and often been made to dance
about while the family were eating around it. At one time,
dishes, knives, and forks were thrown from the table to the
opposite side of the room, breaking the dishes to pieces.

"On another occasion, the voice requested Mrs. Richardson
to remove the dishes from the table, which was done immedi-
ately, when the table commenced rocking violently back and
forward, and continued the motion, so that the dishes could not
be washed upon it, but were placed in a vessel and set upon the
floor, from which a number of them flew from the tub to the
chamber-floor overhead, and were thus broken to pieces. What

136

PLANCHET'TE.

crockery remained we attempted to secure by placing it in a
cupboard, and shut the doors, which were violently thrown open ;
and the dishes flew, like lightning, one after another, against
the opposite side, and broke to pieces. At another time, a draiSver
in the table was, while there was no person near it, drawn out ;
and a plate that had been placed there carried across the room
and broken against the opposite wall. And this kind of demon-
stration has continued until nearly all the crockery about the
house has been broken and destroyed.

" At different times, the drawers of a stand in a bedroom have
been taken out, and at one time carefully placed on a bed. A
large stove-boiler has been, while on the stove, filled with water,
tipped up, and caused to stand on one end, and the water was
turned out upon the floor, and at this time taken oflf from the
stove, and carried some six feet, and set down upon the floor,
and this while untouched by any person. A teakettle has often
been taken from the stove in the same manner, and thrown upon
the floor. At one time, a spider, containing some coffee for the
purpose of browning, was taken from the stove, carried near the
chamber-floor, and then thrown upon the floor. And frequently,
while Mrs. Richardson has been baking buckwheat cakes on the
stove, the griddle has, in the same unaccountable manner, been
taken from the stove, and thrown across the house ; and often
cakes have been taken from the griddle while baking, and have
disappeared entirely.

"At one time, the voice, speaking to my wife, said it (the
spirit) could bake cakes for George, a boy eating at the. table.
Mrs. Richardson stepped away from the stove, when the batter
(already prepared for baking cakes) was by some unseen agency
taken from a crock sitting near the stove, and placed upon the
griddle, and turned at the proper time, and when done taken
from the griddle, and placed upon the boy's plate at the table.
The voice then proposed to bake a cake for Jane, my daughter,
who was at work about the house. The cake was accordingly
baked in the same manner as before stated, and carried across
the room and placed in the girl's hand.

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS.

" During all these occurrences, the talking from the two voices
and others has continued, and still continues daily, together with
such manifestations as I have detailed, with many others not
named. The conversation, as well as the other demonstrations,
have been witnessed almost daily by myself and family, as well
as by scores of persons, who have visited my house to witness
these strange phenomena.

**I will only add, that the spirit (the voice) gave as a reason
for breaking crockery and destroying property, that it is done to
convince the world of the existence of spirit presence."

Several' instances are related in which photographs of supposed
spirit-forms have been taken. In the autumn of 1862, the " spirit
photographs," said to be got through Mr. Mumler, a Boston
photographer, were a subject of much controversy.

In the first edition of this work, we stated that no evidence had
been adduced that Mumler was an impostor. We had been in-
formed that those who knew him personally did not doubt his
honesty. We have since had reason to believe, that the many in-
telligent Spiritualists who distrusted and denounced him from
the first were in the right; that Mumler, so far as his spirit pho-
tographs are concerned, is a clever cheat. And our principal
witness against Mumler is Mumler himself ; not the most con-
clusive authority, some will say, but still a witness whose testi-
mony is sufficient, under the circumstances. Such tricksters
serve a good purpose, and should never excite any other emotion
than that of gratitude in the mind of an earnest investigator;
for they help to sift the spurious phenomena from the real, and
to inspire a salutary caution.

To those acquainted with the established fact, that forms of
hands, supposed to be projected by some intelligent spiritual
force, have been so materialized as to be felt and seen, it will not
be incredible that such forms may be photographed. Indeed,
the cases are not few where the testimony is strong that this lias
been dome. But the subject is one which requires a fuller in-
vestigation before it can be classed with the accepted phe-
nomena.

138

PLANCHETTE.

Professor W. D. Gunning (1867) relates an instance in which
a spirit-hand appeared on the photograph of a young girl. He
says, " While sitting before the camera, she was smitten with
partial blindness. She described it to me as * a kind of blur
coming suddenly over her eyes.* She spoke of it to the artist,
who told her * to wink and sit still.' In developing the plate, he
noticed an imperfection, but did not observe it closely. He sat
the girl again, and took a sheet of eight tintypes. She felt no
blur over her eyes, and there was no blur on the pictures. The
artist now examined the first sheet, and found hands on the face
and neck of every tintype, eight in all ! I have examined four of
these, and find the hands in precisely the same position on each
picture. Now the artist affirms that no human being but himself
and the girl was in the room when these pictures were taken.
He has no theory : he only knows that these hands came on the
picture through no agency of his. What, then, shall we say?"

Professor Gunning shows that the theory that the plate was an
old one, and the hands had been photographed there before, is
absurd. *' As well talk of making an Iliad by throwing down a
ton of types at random ! " Other explanations he rejects as
equally unsatisfactory, and says, " The best part of my life has
been spent in the study and interpretation of science ; and, in all
humility, I should be competent to weigh and interpret facts so
simple as these. And, to my mind, this picture is a fact quite as
important to science as an Amazonian fish. I will not cross an
ocean for a new bug, and cry * Humbug ! ' to a fact like this at
my very door. . . .

*' In paintings of the creation, done in the Middle Ages, you
will see the hand of Deity moving over chaos ; only the hand,
for clouds and darkness veil His form. Belief in the Infinite
Being and the life eternal was nourished and sustained in our
fathers, by art. And now art comes to us even more divine ; for
she is Nature's own, painting with sunbeams. And our loved
ones now and then lift the veil, and reach forth a hand from out
that world of light and beauty, — from that world a hand clothed
upon with elements from this; and art, in her new era, minis-
ters again to our hope of immortality." *

MORE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS. 1 39

Of the numerous speaking mediums, the writing, the drawing,
the musical (such as Blind Tom, the colored hoy), the healing,
the letter- reading, &c., we have left ourselves little room to
speak in this place. Manj of the phenomena through these
various mediums are quite as wonderful and significant as those
we have described ; but, as they are more open to partial explana-
tion by causes not outside of the individual, we shall not do
more than to refer to them at present.

Under date of Washington, D.C., Feb. 6th, 1869, a correspon-
dent of the ** Banner of Light," communicates the following ac-
count of a new medium : " Frankie Gunnell is the son of H. D.
Gunnell, a highly respectable resident of our city. At a private
audience on Friday evening last, there were about sixty ladies
and gentlen^en present, among whom were Thomas W. Ferry,
M.C., from Michigan, and other members of Congress; editors
of city papers, half a dozen medical gentlemen, and other prom-
inent citizens.

Frankie was seated in a small cabinet, in the door of which,
near the top, a diamond-shaped hole was cut. The door was
closed, and he was tied by unseen hands. The committee of
examination, consisting of Mr*. Ferry and Dr. McWilliams, ex-
amined the cords and pronounced the lad securely tied; his
hands being fastened together behind him, and secured to the
back and bottom of the chair on which he was sitting. A guitar,
tambourine, violin, drum, and a bell were placed in the cabinet.
Immediately on closing the door, which was bolted by an unseen
power inside — the clicking of the bolt being distinctly heard
— music was heard from the instruments, and hands were ex-
hibited and thrust through the aperture in the door, one holding
the violin bow, and another the drumstick. The door was un-
bolted inside and instantly opened, when, on careful examina-
tion, the committee pronounced Frankie to be tied precisely as
he was when examined before. The door was again closed, and
hands and arms were instantly presented through the hole in
the door. The bell was rung, and continued ringing until the
door was unbolted inside and opened, when Frankie stepped out
with the cords removed from his person.

140

PLANCHKTTE.

" He then took a seat in the front parlor, the audience being
assembled in front of him and occupying the back parlor, the
doors all being thrown open. The musical instruments were
placed on a table by the side of the medium. The lights were
then put out, and Frankie was immediately made fast by an un-
seen power, with his hands lashed together behind him and
fastened to the chair. The lights were again put up, and Frankie
was examined, and pronounced to be securely tied. Again the
lights were put out, and the musical instruments were seen fly-
ing through the room, distinctly recognized by the phosphorus
that had been rubbed upon them a few minutes before. The
lights were called for, and the medium was found to be bound
as when last examined. The experiments were repeated with
similar and varied results. The medium, then, with the lights
out, asked some one to * request the spirits to take my [the
medium's] coat off; * which was done in an instant, the hands
still tied together and to the chair. The request was made to
have it put on, which was done in an instant. Mr. Ferry then,
at the request of the medium, took his coat off and laid it upon
a table. The room was no sooner darkened, and the request
made, than the coat was put upon the medium, and, after exami-
nation, was taken off with equal dexterity. A request was made to
show the hand by which this was done, when a hand was seen im-
mediately on the bottle of phosphorus sitting on the mantel-shelf.

" I am not a believer in spiritual manifestations, nor am I of
those who would reject, without examination, such manifesta-
tions in evidence of spirit communication as are here presented.
I am an earnest inquirer after truth. I have been on the com-
mittee and in the cabinet with the Davenport Brothers. I am
satisfied there is no collusion on their part, and I am equally
convinced that young Frankie Gunnell is not an impostor."

Every week we hear of new cases similar to this. Accounts,
too, reach us from England of phenomena equally surprising, so
well attested by men of science, and by lords and baronets, that
"the Fellows of the Royal Society, and other fellows, stand
aghast at the amount of testimony, and begin to think that they
must reconsider the oonclusions of Faraday and the rest in
regRTd to these occurrences.**

CHAPTER VII.

THE SEERESS OF PREVORST. - KERNER. - STILLING.

" I gaze aloof

On the tissued roof,
Where time and space are the warp and woof,

Which the King of kings

As a curtain flings
0*er tlie dreadfulness of eternal things." — if^f. TAos. IVhUehead.

'T^HE most remarkable of the phenomena we have recorded
had their counterpart in those known in the little village
of Prevorst, amid the mountains of Northern Wurtemberg,
twenty- two years before the Fox family first heard the rappings
at Hydesville.

Frederica Hauif(6, the seeress, was born in Prevorst, in the year
1801. She died in 1829. "She lived," writes the late Margaret
Fuller, "but nine-and-twenty years; yet in that time had trav-
A*sed a larger portion of the field of thought than all her race
before in their many and long lives."

The biography of the seeress, published in 1829, was from the
pen of Justinus Kerner, chief physician at Weinsberg, a man of
unquestionable ability and stainless integrity. His proclama-
tion of the phenomena, and the spiritual facts developed in the
life of his subject, brought upon him a storm of ridicule and
denunciation, from which there are few men who would not have
shrunk. He met it bravely, and maintained his ground with a
steadiness which no sneers from the savatts and wits among his
contemporaries could impair; and at last his veracity as a
biographer, his philosophical sagacity, and his skill as a cool

PLANCHETTE.

observer of facts have been completely vindicated by the events
of the last twenty years.

After her marriage, in her 19th year, to Herr Hauff^, a worthy
man, the seeress, who was of a remarkably delicate organization,
became subject to spasmodic attacks, and would often pass into a
somnambulic state. She at last became so sensitive to magnetic
influences that even the nails in the walls had to be removed.
Articles, the near neighborhood of which to her person was
found injurious, would be taken away by an unseen hand. Such
objects as a silver spoon would be perceptibly conveyed from her
hand to a more convenient distance, and laid on a plate ; not
thrown, for the things would pass slowly through the air as if
borne by invisible agency.

In 1826, Dr. Kerner took charge of Mrs. Hauffi^. He soon '
found that drugs had no effect upon her. Even the homoeo-
pathic pharmacopoeia was discarded. The seeress, in her clair-
voyant state, prescribed for herself better than any physician
could have done.

I The rapping phenomena were common in her presence. Ker-
ner says, " As I had been told by her parents, a year before her
father's death, that, at the period of her early nuignetic state,
she was able to make herself heard by her friends, as they lay
in bed at night, in the sajne village, but in other houses, by a
knocking, — as is said of the dead, — I asked her, in her som-
nambulic state, whether she was able to do so now, and at
what distance ? She answered, that she would sometime do it ;
that to the spirit space was nothing. Sometime after this, as we
were going to bed, — my children and servants being already
asleep, — we heard a knocking, as if in the air, over our heads.
There were six knocks, at intervals of half a minute. It was a
hollow, yet clear sound, soft, but distinct. We* were certain
theie was no one near us, nor over us, from whom it could pro-
ceed ; and our house stands by itself. On the following evening,
when she was asleep, when we had mentioned the knocking to
nobody whatever, she asked me whether s\fe should soon
knock to us again ; which, as she said it was hurtful to her, I
declined."

THE RAPPINGS AT PREVORST.

And again he tells us, "In my own house, I can bear witness
• not only to the sounds of throwing, knocking, &c. ; but a small
table was flung into a room without any visible nveans; the
pewter plates in the kitchen were hurled about, in the hearing of
the whole house, — circumstances laughable to others, and which
would be so to me, had I not witnessed them in my sound mind ;
. bi^t which become doubly significant, when I compare them to
many accounts I have heard of the like nature, where there was
no somnambule in question."

Here we have phenomena precisely like those with which the
records of witchcraft, and the accounts of haunted houses, are
filled.

Speaking of a spirit who frequently came to her, Kerner
says, ** His appearance was always preceded by knockings ;
however suddenly a person flew to the place to try and detect
whence the noise proceeded, they could see nothing. If they
went outside, the knocking was immediately heard inside, and
vice-versd. However securely they closed the kitchen-door, nay,
if they tied it with cords, it was found open in the morning; and
though they frequently rushed to the spot on hearing it open or
shut, they never could find anybody. Sounds as of breaking
wood, of pewter plates being knocked together, and the crack-
ling of a fire in the oven, were also commonly heard ; but the
cause of them could not be discovered. A sound resembling
that of a triangle was also frequently heard ; and not only Mrs.
Haufl*i6, but others of her family, often saw a spectral female
form. The noises in the house became at length so remarkable,
that her father declared he could stay in it no longer; and they
were not only audible to everybody in it, but to the passengers
in the street, who stopped to listen to them, as they passed."

The Rev. Mr. Hermann wrote several questions for a spirit
who visited Mrs. Haufll6 to answer. From the time these were
shown to the spirit, Mr. Hermann " found himself awakened at a
particular hour every night, and felt immediately an earnest dis-
position to prayer. There was always, at the same time, a
knocking in his room, sometimes n the floor, and sometimes

144

PLANCHETTB.

on the walls, which his wife heard as well as himself ; but they
saw nothing."

Several experiments were made to test the reality of the seer-
ess*s spirit-vision. Kerner relates that "An acquaintance of
Mrs. Hauffd's who sometimes visited her, one day informed U6
that a friend of hers was dead. This person had promised her
that lie would appear to her after death, and we consequently
hourly expected to learn that she had seen his ghost ; but days,
weeks and months passed without anj such event happening.
Then the acquaintance owned, that, not believing in the reality of
these apparitions, he had said it for an experiment ; the person
was not dead. Another experiment was made as follows : Mrs.
Hauffid was frequently visited by the spectre of a deceased person,
of whom she had never seen or heard any thing whatever. A
friend bade her learn of this ghost the period of his birth, which
neither s-he nor I knew. This was done ; but when our friend
made inquiry of his relations whether the time mentioned was
correct, they said, *No.' This our friend wrote to us; and I
read the letter to Mrs. Hauftl^, advancing it as a strong argument
against the reality of the apparitions. She answered, unmoved,
that she would inquire again. She did so, and the answer was
the same. I wrote again to my friend, saying so, and begging
him to ascertain more particularly the period of the birth in
question; and, on doing this, he found that the relations had
been in error ; the time had been correctly named."

He adds, "I could relate many other equally remarkable facts,
but that I should be encroaching too much on the privacy of the
parties concerned." He details twenty-two facts that occurred at
Weinsberg in evidence of the presence and operaticins of spirits.
Concerning these he says, "Of the greatest number, I was fliy-
self a witness; and what I took upon the credit of others, I most
curiously investigated, and anxiously sought, if by any possi-
bility a natural explanation of them could be found; but in
vain." These facts are further corroborated by councillors, pro-
fessors, and other ofi^cial persons.

Mrs. Hauffid's statement concerning the spirits who appeared

THE SEERESS'S DESCRIPTION OF SPIRITS. I45

to her is interesting. Her words are, " I see many with whom
I come into no approximation, and others who come to me, with
whom I converse, and who remain near me for months : I see
them at various times by day and night, whether I am alone or
in company. I am perfectly awake at the time, and am not sen-
sible of any circumstance or sensation that calls them up. I see
them alike whether I am strong or weak, plethoric or in a state
of inanition, glad or sorrowful, amused or otherwise ; and I can-
not dismiss them. Not that they are always with me ; but they
come at their own pleasure, like mortal visitors, and equally
whether I am in a spiritual or corporeal state at the time. When
I am in my calmest and most healthy sleep, they awaken me:
I know not how; but I feel that I am awakened by them, and
that I should have slept on had they not come to my bedside.
I observe frequently that, when a ghost visits me by night, those
who sleep in the same room with me are, by their dreams, made
aware of ks presence : they speak afterwards of the apparition
they saw in their dream, although I have not breathed a syllable
on the subject to them. Whilst the ghosts are with me, I see
and hear every thing around me as usual, and can think of other
subjects; and though I can avert my eyes from them, it is
difficult for me to do it: I feel in a sort of magnetic rapport
with them. They appear to me like a thin cloud, that one could
see through ; which, however, I cannot do. I never observed
that they threw any shadow. I see them more clearly by sun or
moonlight than in the dark; but whether I could see them in
absolute darkness, I do not know. If any object comes between
me and them, they are hidden from me. I cannot see them with
closed eyes, nor when I turn my face from them."

" Here then," says Mr. Shorter, in his review of these occur-
rences, " nearly forty years ago, in the life of this poor, untaught
peasant woman, we have brought together those modes of spirit
manifestation which call forth so much denial when their
occurrence at the present day is affirmed; manifestations in
dream, vision, voice, touch, writing, drawing, presentiment, pre-
diction, apparitions, second-sight, clairvoyance, crystal-seeing,

146 PLANCHETTE.

movements of objects, rappings, trance-speaking, thought-read-
ing, and the spirit-language."

According to Kerner, Eschenmayer, Schubert, Gdrres, and
others, who observed Madame Hauff(6 long and carefully, she
seemed to be more in the spiritual world than in the physical.
"She was," says Kerner, **more than half a spirit, and belonged
to a world of spirits : she belonged to a world after death, and
was more than half dead. In her sleep only was she truly awake.
Nay, so l90se was the connection between soul and body that,
like Swedenborg, she often went out of the body, and could
contemplate it separately."

Like many other clairvoyants she could, in her somnambulic
state, read anything laid on the pit of her stomach, and inclosed
between other sheets of blank paper. Her perception of differ-
ent sensations from plants, precious stones, and other minerals,
was repeatedly tried by placing them in her hands, when she
would always ascribe the same property to the same tiding. She
was at times lifted into the air, as has been the case with Mr.
Home, Miss Lord, and other modern mediums, as well as with
many saints and devotees of all countries and times.

Science in its progress is daily supplying, in connection with
these and kindred facts, many new analogies. " However in-
comprehensible," says Friedrich von Meyer, "a world of spirits
may be to the natural reason, the progress of our knowledge of
the physical world and of the extraordinary nature of man is
every day rendering it more comprehensible."

Kerner, who died in 1859, ^"^1 years and honors, was a
writer of no ordinary force and culture. In the spirit with
which he handles his assailants, he often reminds us of that
matchless master of controversial weapons, Lessing.

In his "Leaves from Prevorst," published subsequently to the
•eeres8*8 death, Kerner, after relating some striking cases of
•pirit-agency, of recent occurrence, through others than the
•eeress, says that any person wishing to convince himself of one
of them " has only to make the little journey from Stuttgart to
Oberstenfeld."

A PICTURE FOR ALL TIME.

** But," adds Kerner, with a fine irony, " it is much more con-
venient to sit at your writing-table by the fireside, and decide on
such things without seeing them."

His picture of the class of critics who pronounce judgment on
facts in this way is one for all time. Some of these philosophers,
indeed not a few may be found in our own country, mounted
on reviewers' stools, and sending forth their oracular criticisms,
weekly or monthly, on matters they know nothing about, in any
practical or experimental sense.

" None of those gentlemen," writes Kerner, " who call them-
selves the friends of truth, set so much value upon it, as to
move a single foot over the Resenbach : no one takes the least
trouble to prove these things at the time, and on the spot. For
many years the extraordinary manifestations of the Seeress of
Prevorst were made public; but none of the gentlemen who
now, all at once, pretend that they would have liked so very
much to have seen her, and who sit and write whole blue-books
about her, ever took a moment's trouble, whilst she lived, to see,
to hear, and to test her.

"At their writing-tables they continued sitting, but professed
to have seen, heard, and proved every thing, — much more than
the quiet, earnest, and deeply thinking psychologist, Eschen-
meyer, who did take the trouble to examine and prove every
thing at the time and on the spot, for the truth's sake, shunning
no journey, when necessary, in the severest cold of winter.
Only by such a method can such things be probed to the truth :
the learned way of knowing and speculating by the pounce-box
proves nothing.

" These gentlemen wAo construct their heaven and their hell
according to their own wishes^ and push the love and grace of
God before them in any direction that is convenient to them,
rather than give themselves up to believe what, from their pride
and sensual indulgences, is most unpleasant and repugnant to
them, labor hard, by all the arts of intellectual acuteness and
of di^ectics, to persuade themselves, though it be but for the
brief moment of this life, that the future inevitably awaiting

PLANCHETTE.

them, will correspond with the wishes and feelings which exist
in this body.

" Probably it is very difficult for the pride of man to believe
that he shall, one day, come into a condition where the noth-
ingness of his inner being shall issue to the light; when the
mask shall fall, under which he has endeavored here to conceal
himself, and to parade himself complacently in the public eye.
It is difficult, too, for the so-called intellectual* to believe in
spirits that do not show themselves spiritual. According to them,
every man after his death should at once arrive at the intel-
lectual knowledge and eminence of a Hegel. But now come
spirits, trifling and foolish, and spirits like those who came to
the Seeress of Prevorst; who longed after Scripture texts and
hymns ; at the name of Jesus became clearer, and asserted that
only in the name of Jesus can rest and joy be found. In such
spirits it is impossible for the learned and intellectual to believe ;
and such apparitions are to them only the product of a sick
fancy.

" And spirits now come, who are much poorer and more desti-
tute than spirits in this life ever showed themselves, so that to
our critics such a spirit-world must appear unworthy of God;
and if they could convince themselves that such a spirit- world did
exist, they would doubt the wisdom of the Creator : since spir-
its, they think, should either not show themselves at all, or in a
manner to do honor to their Maker. This signifies nothing,
however; for God and Nature will have the mastery I f

** Let us suppose, for a moment, that those creatures on our

* Witness the silly remarks of the "London Saturday Review" of Dec. 17, 1862,
which says, " If this is the spirit-world, and if this is spiritual intelligence, and if all thai
spirits can do is to whisk about in dark rooms^ and pinch people s legs under the table ^
and play * Home, Sweet Home^" on the accordion, and kiss folks in the datk, and
paint baby pictures, and write such sentimental namby pamby as Mr. Coleman copies
out from their dictation, it is much better to be a respectaltle pig and accept annihila-
tion than to be cursed with such an imtnortality as this." Kemer anticipates and
answers the sneers of witlings like this.

t Bacon says, "The voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do
or not"

kernbr's reply to the critics. 149

earth, which constitute a transition class, and find themselves, as
it were, in an intermediate state, as seals, bats, megatherians,
were so formed that they could only be seen by men of a pecul-
iar condition of nerves, and by others not at all, the latter
would protest that no such creatures existed, or could possibly
exist. They would exclaim excitedly, *A creature half-mouse,
half-bird, a creature half-calf, half-fish, would be unworthy of
the Creator, who never brings forth helpless, crippled, half-
existences. Such things, they would say, are the mere births of
a sick fancy; and, were they really existent, which, however, it
would be the height of folly to believe, would make one doubt
the wisdom of the Creator.* That is precisely what the critics
say of what they call low and undignified spirits.

"But these creatures, now mentioned, do exist at this very
time, my beloved! spite of thy belief and thy critical judgment;
and thou shalt not, therefore, doubt the wisdom of their Creator,
but shalt fall down, and, with all humility, shalt worship and
say, * What I here in the dust, with the eye of a mole, regard
as so great a disharmony, will hereafter, when the scales fall
from my mole's-eye, appear as harmony.*

"And so is it also with those wretched spirits I Beloved!
they are there! However thou mayest, in thy notions of the
Creator, consider them so unworthy ; however, in thy intellectual
wealth, mayest struggle against them in thy spirit, — there they
are, contrary to all the systems of such learned, acute, and intel-
lectual men ! There they are in truth, as real as the helpless
caterpillars, out of which slowly the butterflies shall unfold
themselves. There they are, and you cannot hinder them;
cannot do otherwise than disbelieve in them, and, disbelieving,
fight against them with all your dialectic arts, ready-writings,
wit, and acuteness, dui ivhich^ in fact, does not at all annihilate
this spirit-world ; but it goes on its way, troubling itself not in
the least about all your intellectual skirmishing.

" On this point an able writer has said already, ^ Suppose a
critic to wi ite an article that turned out and was decided by the
public to be a poor affair, are we to consider it unworthy of

ISO

PLANCHETTE.

the Creator to have made such a wretched stick " ? And 8upp<»e
this critic to have suddenly departed into the other world, with-
out having got any more sense, are we to doubt the wisdom of
the Creator, if the man should manifest himself here as a very
paltry ghost indeed?* It may, however, be answered', by some
wise one, that every thing should in this world either not exist,
or exist as a credit to its Maker. This, indeed, would be very
praiseworthy and agreeable; but the courteous reader knows
very well that the image of God in this world often reduces him-
self to a most hideous and foolish caricature of a man ; but does
any body on that account doubt of the wisdom of the Creator?
JTes : let us look into the mirror^ and I am afraid we shall find our^
selves very much unlike the original image of God"

Kerner then gives a series of well-attested cases of the appari-
tions of such distorted and degraded spirits, and adds, " It is an
incontestable truth which Jacob Bdhme ably demonstrates, and
which the Seeress of Prevorst confirms; namely, that *The
body being now broken up and dying, the soul retains her like-
ness as the spirit of her will. Now is it away from the body;
for in dying there is a separation. Now the likeness appears in
and amid the things which the soul had here imbibed, which
she had infected herself with, which she allowed to build them-
selves up in her, since she has the same well-spring in her.
That which she loved here, which was her treasure, and into
which the spirit of her will entered, is now expressed in her,
and becomes her spiritual image, not as a reminiscence, but as
an actual condition.'"

Let us hope that the day is near when a more reverent atten-
tion will be lent to facts which are the key to much that con-
founds our scrutiny in our studies of human nature.

Johann Jung-Stilling, born in Westphalia, in Germany, 1740,
was, like Kerner, a devoted Spiritualist. His "Theory of Pneu-
matology," translated into English by Samuel Jackson, was re-
published in New York, in 1S51, with an introduction from the
pen of our revered friend, the late George Bush, whom it was our
fortune to introduce to some of the phenomena of somnambu-

STILLING.

lism, which we were investigating at the time. StiUing appears
to have been well versed in the facts which the manifestations
of 1848 brought so prominently before public attention. The
phenomena of rapping and knocking he frequently notices, as
modes of spirits announcing themselves. He was convinced of
the existence of the spiritual body. "There is a natural body,
and there is a spiritual body," says St. Paul; is now, not ts
to BE.

Stilling was unconsciously a "medium." He announced,
more than ten weeks before the occurrence, the tragic fate of
Lavater, who was shot by a soldier in Zurich, in 1799. Stilling
wrote seasonably to Hess, and begged him to communicate the
prediction to Lavater. The warning seems to have been un-
heeded. Stilling's presentiments of evil were sometimes very
strong, and as unerring as they were strong. In his " Pneuma-
tology," he has collected a great number of authentic narratives
of apparitions and other phenomena indicative of spiritual
powers. The "many-sided" Goethe was Stilling's fellow-
student at Strasburg, and became strongly attached to him.
" I urged him," says Goethe, " to write his life; and he promised
to do so." The promise was fulfilled.

Stilling was well acquainted with the phenomena of animal
magnetism. His experiments convinced him, as our own long
since convinced us, that the soul does not require the outward
organs of sense in order to be able to see, hear, smell, taste, and
feel, in a much more perfect state.* "Animal magnetism," he
says, " proves that we have an inward man, a soul, which is
constituted of the divine spark, the immortal spirit, possessing
reason and will, and of a luminous body, which is inseparable

♦ " The vision that can see through brick walls," says Professor William Denton
(1868), "and distinguish objects miles away, does not belong to the body: it must
belong to the spirit. Hundreds of tinl^s have I had the evidence that the spirit can
smell, hear, and see, and has powers of locomotion. As the fin in the unhatched fish
indicates the water in which he may one day swim, as the wing of the unfledged bird
denotes the air in which it may one day fly, so these powers in man indicate that
mighty realm which the spirit is fitted eternally to enjoy."

153

PUWCHETTE.

from it. Light, electric, magnetic, galvanic matter, and ether,
appear to be all one and the same substance, under different
modifications. The light, or ether, is the element which con-
nects soul and body and the spiritual and material world to-
gether.

"The ideas we form of the creation, and all the science and
knowledge resulting from them, depend entirely upon our
organization. God views every thing as it is in itself. For, if
he viewed things in space, and as no space can be conceived
as really existing unless limited, the views which God takes
would therefore also be limited, which is impossible; conse-
quently no space exists out of us in nature, but our ideas of it
arise solely from our organization. If God viewed objects in
succession and rotation, he would exist in time, and thus again
be limited. Now, as this is impossible, time is therefore also a
mode of thinking peculiar to finite capacities, and not any thing
true or real."

From these principles. Stilling arrives at the opinion that,
since time and space are only modes of thinking suited to our
present state, it is impossible that rational inferences, though
mathematically just, can serve to guide us into the truths of the
invisible world, when their premises are founded on modes of
thinking adapted to the visible world, but excluding operations
from the invisible.

Perhaps this theory may explain why natural science makes
such blunders in its attempts to deal with the recent phe-
nomena.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOMNAMBULISM, CLAIRVOYANCE, ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
" Shut your eyes, and you will see." — Joubert,

*• Whereas the atheists impute the origin of these things to men*s mistaking both
their dreams and waking fancies for real visions and sensations, they do hereby plainly
contradict one main fundamental principle of their own philosophy, that sense is the
only ground of certainty and the criterion of all truth." — Cudworik.

IN the face of the opposing protestations of a negative mate-
rialism, there is one great fact established hy the positive
testimony of the past and of our own age; this, namely, #that
there are and have been such individuals as seers, somnambu-
lists, mediums, exhibiting powers which wholly transcend those
of our mortal senses, and who must derive such powers either
from spiritual faculties of their own, superseding the physical
and normal, or from communication with spiritual forces and
intelligences external to themselves. The manifestations upon
which our convictions of this fact are based are of daily occur-
rence, and such as may be tested by all who will take a little
trouble and exercise a little patience.

More than thirty years ago, by a series of experiments which
extended over a period of two years, we satisfied ourselves of
the facts of animal magnetism, or mesmerism, including the
higher phenomena of lucid somnambulism. Our opportunities
of investigation were of daily occurrence, and such as to make
imposture impracticable. We made many observations of high
psychological significance, as we believe, confirming most of the
accounts of similar experiences by Puysegur, De Leuze, Dupotet,
Chnuncy Hare Townshend, and others.

154

PLANCHETTE.

The interest of these observations has been, to a great extent,
merged in the more comprehensive generalizations of modern
Spiritualism, including the phenomena of animal magnetism, as
well as of witchcraft and sorcery, and thus showing them all to
be expressions of one great spiritual or psychical fact.

Moreover, many of the most surprising phenomena of animal
magnetism, though ridiculed and denied for a long time by the
scientific world, are now admitted by the leading physiologists
of tlie day. Science is just beginning to change its attitude of
angry contempt for the less unbecoming position of inquiry and
attention. One has only to read the medical and physiological
writings of Dr. Carpenter, his admissions on the subject of som-
nambulism, of brain action without consciousness, and other
unexplained mysteries, to be satisfied on this point; for Dr. Car-
penter now represents the most advanced school of England in
his department of physiology, and few equally high contempo-
rary authorities can be named.

It is true that some of the more surprising facts of clairvoy-
ance are still kept at a distance, on probation, even by Dr. Car-
penter; but they are no longer treated with that disdainful
vituperation or easy indifference which the magnates of science
observed towards them up to the year 1856.

The phenomena of lucid somnambulism are a constant offence
and stumbling-block to the modern materialistic school, of
which Moleschott, Vogt, Feuerbach, and Biichner are active
representatives. With the asperity of partisanship, these able
writers deny all evidences of a psychical nature in man, and
seem to take it as a personal affront if we credit them with
immortal souls.

"It may appear singular," says Dr. Biichner, "that at all
times those individuals were the most zealous for a personal
continuance after death, whose souls were scarcely worthy of
such a careful preservation."

This modest philosopher would seem to look upon the
Augustines, Origens, Pascals, Johnsons, and Goethes of the hu-
man race as small specimens, compared with Dr. Biichner!

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

»55

Lpdwig Feuerbach (born 1804) has the following remark:
" No one who has eyes to see can fail to remark, that the belief
in the immortality of the soul has long been effaced from ordi-
nary life, and that it only exists in the subjective imagination of
individuals, still very numerous."

That the belief in immortality has been largely effaced from
the ordinary life of many educated persons, is, we fear, but too
true; but this is owing, in a great degree, to the circumstance,
that the class of facts which modern Spiritualism has re-verified
has been excluded, by false theories and an imperious ignorance,
from scientific consideration. Belief in immortality was more 1
general in ancient times than now, if we except the rapidly
increasing body of Spiritualists. Even so good a Catholic as
Frederick Schlegel admits this. "Among those nations of
primitive antiquity," he says, the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis : it was a lively
certainty, like the feeling of one's own being."

One has to go back only to the time of Richard Baxter, to see^
how largely the convictions of immortality^ in his day, were
based on a knowledge of spiritual phenomena.

But in what mole's labyrinth can the learned Feuerbach have
been burrowing, that he does not know that some of the most
eminent anthropologists of the present time — men who build their
belief on a patient induction of objective facts — have admitted
the phenomena and the hypothesis of Spiritualism?

He has no doubt heard of the Darwinian theory; for it is a
favorite one with the materialists, while at the same time it does
not in the least disturb the Spiritualists. Among the Spiritual-
ists of England is Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, a distinguished natu-
ralist, who made explorations on the Amazon ; and of this
gentleman. Dr. Hooker, the president of the British Scientific
Association, spoke as follows, in his address at the meeting at
Norwich, in August, 1868 : —

" Many of the metaphysicians' objections have been contro-
verted by that champion of natural selection, Mr. Darwin's true
knight, 'Alfred R. Wallace, in his papers on * Protection,' in the

156

PLANCHETTE.

•Westminster Review,' and * Creation hy Law,* in the 'Journal
of Science,' October, 1867, &c., in which the doctrines of
* Continual Interference,' the 'Theory of Beanty,' and kindred
subjects, are discussed with admirable sagacity, knowledge, and
skill ; but of Mr. Wallace, and his many contributions to philo-
sophical biology, it is not easy to speak without enthusiasm ;
for, putting aside their great merits, he, throughout his writings,
with a modesty as rare as I believe it to be in him unconscious,
forgets his own unquestionable claims to the honor of having
originated, independently of Mr. Darwin, the theories which he
so ably defends."

Mr. Wallace's testimony to the facts of Spiritualism is there-
fore that of a competent scientific man of the highest reputation ;
and for such a man to be complacently set down, by a metaphy-
sician in his closet, as the victim of his subjective imagination,"
is a reversal of the order of things.

Mr. Karl Vogt (born 1817) is very intolerant of any facts of a
spiritual tendency. He says, *' Phvysiology " {my physiology?)
*** decides definitely and categorically against individual immor-
tality, as against any special existence of the soul. The soul ♦
does not enter the foetus, like the evil spirit into persons possessed,
but is a product of the development of the brain ; just as muscu-
lar activity is a product of muscular development, and secretion
a product of glandular development. . . . The foetus manifests
no mental activity : this changes with the periods of life, and
ceases altogether at death."

Here is mere dogmatic assertion, without any proof or apology
for proof. How does Mr. Vogt know that " the foetus manifests
no mental activity" ? From the time of that Elizabeth, men-

♦ In the "Ontology" of Dr. Doherty (TrUbner & Co., London), some of the
most advanced facts of physiology are harmonized with those which Spiritualism
reveals. " The spirit," says this writer, " forms the body in utero, by collecting and
associating particles of matter from the blood of the mother to form organs ; and it
sustains the physical organism during life by a constant interchange of atoms with the
exterdtl world. It is the soul which originates the body, and adapts it to its own
special functions."

DOGMATISM 09 MATERIALISTS.

tioned by St. Luke, down to our own day, there are mothers by
the million who will tell Mr. Vogt that his declaration is erro*
neous.

Mr. Vogt labors through an entertaining volume, in which
the language of science is diversified with that of sarcasm, to
prove that we need not pass over many links of our genealogy
to find apes for our ancestors. We have no special repugnance
to the ape-theory. Many Spiritualists are inclined to it. The
Darwinian hypothesis might become a certainty to-morrow, and
it would not clash with the convictions of a man who knows
that the phenomena proclaimed in this volume are substantially
true ; and Spiritualism, while it encourages us to aspire to the
attainments of the loftiest seraph, would, if rightly meditated,
teach us a humility that would not shrink from sympathy with
the creature that is lowest in the scale of being.

But so far as Mr. Vogt's system rests on his ignorance of
spiritual facts, it needs reconstruction, if he would have it
conform with the science of the future.

Dr. Moleschott (born 1822), who has acquired high distinction
as an anthropologist, imagines, with the sanguine temperament
of youth, that he has uttered the last word of science in regard
to a certain class of facts, when he says, " Unprejudiced philos-
ophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality
and of a personal continuance after death.**

So the philosophy which differs from that of Dr. Moleschott,
and which refuses to accept his cheerful doctrine of the soul's
annihilation, is a philosophy of prejudice*' ! Newton, LeibnitXi
and the rest, were men of prejudice I

With equal positiveness, the late Dr. Elliotson (who knew a
good deal that Dr. Moleschott has yet to master) taught, for
many years, in the Zoist," a materialism quite as dense and
narrow as his. But, after he had lived threescore years and ten,
he stumbled on one little fact, demonstrated to him by his senses
and his reason, which shivered the "unprejudiced philosophy"
of a lifetime as by a lightning-flash, and convinced him that tiie
Spiritualists, with their vulgar intuitions and their stubborn

158 PLANCHETTE.

experiences of spiritual intervention, were, after all, in the right,
and that there t's a personal continuance after death.**

Dr. Moleschott's philosophy is foredoomed to the same end ;
for it rests on a repudiation of the positive testimony of a large
portion of the human race up to the present time. Unless, like
the man who refused to look through a microscope, because it
would subvert his pet theory, he stubbornly persists in ignoring
the great facts of Spiritualism, he must some day do as EUiotson
did, and humbly acknowledge his error. The following lines
of Beattie explain the rest : —

" So feres the system-building sage,
Who, plodding on from youth to age.
Has proved all other reasoners fools,
And bound all Nature by his rules ;
So feres he in that dreadful hour
When injured Truth exerts her power
Some new pkenomenoti to raise^
Which, bursting on his frightened gaze.
From its proud summit to the ground
Proves the whole edifice unsound."

There are hopeful tokens already in the more recent writings
of Dr. Moleschott, that he is reconsidering his barren doctrine of
the " all-mightiness of the transmutations of matter," in which
he seems merely to have revamped some of the notions of
Heraclitus.

The denial of the continuous life of man, after the dissolution
of the material body, is a negation that never arises from knowU
edge. It is not the exposition of any positive knowledge, but
the mere dogmatic assertion that beyond the line of such knowl-
edge there lies nothing more. This is why we regard as unphil-
osophical and irrational the position of those who teach
dogmatically that the phenomenon called death is the end of
the conscious individualism of man. All such teaching is as
imphilosophical and unscientific as it is arrogant and presump-
tuous.

The utmost that the materialist can rationally say, is, "I
doubt the fact of a future life." To say " There is no future life,"

CLAIRVOYANT SOMNAMBULISM. 1 59

he ought to be the spirit whose existence he repudiates. If it
requires spirit to reveal the fact of spirit, surely nothing less
than spiritual authority is requisite to teach the fact of no-spirit.
Thus the dogmatist against a future life is involved in a contra-
diction. To teach the matter confidently, he ought to have an
illumination, the possibility of which his theory utterly denies.
No one but a seer has a right to say, " There is no life for man
beyond the grave ; '* and the seer's own seership would give the
lie to his assertion. The Pyrrhonist may be a philosopher; but
the teacher of annihilation is simply a charlatan.

The Spiritualist, on the contrary, having a knowledge of
phenomena, mental and physical, proving to his satisfaction the
existence of spiritual powers, would be false to his own legiti-
mate convictions if he did not teach the great fact of immortal-
ity as a certainty^ in view of which our mortal life ought to be
shaped, and our thoughts and affections constantly refreshed by
the sublime consciousness that death is a mere incident, which
leaves the essential part of our being untouched ; and that we
shall survive to study the infinite works of the Creator in other
worlds, and to commune with the loved ones gone before, and
the great and good of all ages, in progressive stages of being,
with whicli this rudimental state, and our discipline here, shall
be found hereafter to have been in perfect accord.

Dr. Biichner has an easy way of disposing of certain incon-
venient facts. He says, " Some of these phenomena, clairvoy-
ance especially, have been laid hold of to prove the existence of
the supernatural and supersensual. . . . All these things are
now, by science and an interrogation of the facts, considered as
idle fancies. . . . What the belief in sorcery, witchcraft, de-
moniac possession, &c., was in former centuries, re-appears now
under the agreeable forms of table-moving, spirit-rapping, psy-
chography, somnambulism, &c. . . . There can be no doubt
that all pretended cases of clairvoyance rest upon fraud or illu-
sion. Clairvoyance, that is, perception of external objects with-
out the aid of the. senses, is an impossibility. It is a law of
nature, which cannot be gainsaid, that we require our eyes to

i6o

PLANCHETTE.

see, our ears to hear, and that the senses are limited in their
action by space."

It would thus seem that Dr. BUchner, like his master, Mole-
schott, bases his whole structure of atheistic materialism upon
his ignorance of certain facts, known to be true at this day bj
several millions of intelligent persons, and publicly proclaimed
as true by several thousands. If he will open his eyes, he will
find that he is behind the age. Even Dr. Carpenter and the
** Edinburgh Review " admit the power of somnambulists to see
through opaque substances, and to read without the normal use
of their physical organs of sight.

Dr. Maudsley, in his recent work on the ** Physiology and
Pathology of the Mind," has presented the materialistic view of
his subject with exhaustive ability ; but in doing this he has to
ignore almost entirely the great facts of somnambulism. His
reference to the subject is of the most meagre and casual kind.
"Perhaps," he says (page 267), " no more fitting opportunity
than the present will present itself for referring to the singular
state of somnambulism." And then, after attributing the phe-
nomena to the ** independent action of the sensorial and corre-
sponding motor centres," he winds up with " a striking instance "
that recently came under his observation. It is a story of a
young sempstress who got up in the night and finished, in a
state of somnambulism, the work on which she was engaged.

And here is the moral he draws from the incident : " Soon the
long day's task will be over with her, and she will sleep well
where no troubles more can reach her, and no dream of work or
sorrow disturb her slumbers." All which is simply a repetition
of Chaumette*s epigraph in the days of the French revolution :
" Death is an eternal sleep." An hypothesis which all the facts
of somnambulism confute ! And yet to this momentous subject
Dr. Maudsley gives less than two pages out of the four hundred
and forty-two to which his volume extends.

M. Georget, a much esteemed physiologist of the Paris school,
appears to have arrived ultimately at a very different conclusion
from that where Dr. Maudsley leaves us. Georget was the au-

TESTIMONY OF GEORGET.

thor of a much esteemed work on the "Physiology of the Ner-
vous System (1821)." In it he professed opinions, charged with
materialism, very similar to those of Dr. Maudsley; but, after
numerous experiences in magnetic somnarnbulism, Georget
completely changed his views, and had the courage and good
faith to avow it, and to give the avowal an added sanctity by
incorporating it in his last will and testament, as follows : —

" I must not conclude without an important declaration. In
1821, in my work on the * Physiology of the Nervous System,*
I boldly professed materialism. . . . This work had scarcely
appeared, when renewed meditations on a very extraordinary
phenomenon, somnambulism, no longer permitted me to enter-
tain doubts of the existence within us, and external to us, of
an intelligent principle, altogether different from material ex-
istences ; in a word, of the soul and God. With respect to this
I have a profound conviction, founded upon facts which I
believe to be incontestable. This declaration will not see the
light till a period when its sincerity will not be doubted, nor my
intentions suspected. As I cannot publish it myself, I request
those persons who may read it, on opening this will, that is to
say, after my death, to give it all possible publicity."

Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) bears much the same relation to
animal magnetism that Miss Kate Fox does to modern Spiritu-
alism. The fact of the influence of one human being by
another, under certain conditions, through passes of the hand,
or by the simple exercise of the will, was known and practised
long before Mesmer introduced the subject anew to public atten-
tion. Recent discoveries at Pompeii show that it was a mode
of relief known there centuries ago. Plautus, in "Amphitryo,"
makes one of his characters ask, How if I stroke him slowly
with the hand, so that he sleeps?'* These magnetic means of
cure were not only practised, but directions for them were
inscribed on sacred tables and pillars, and illustrated by pic-
tures on the temple walls, so as to be intelligible to all. Apu-
leius furnishes similar evidences of the ordinary practice by the
Romans of magnetic manipulations, to induce somnambulism

FLAl^CUETTB.

and clairvoyance. In Livy alone, there are more than fifty
instances in which he refers to the literal fulfilment of dreams,
oracles, prognostics by seers, &c.

It was Mesmer's theory, that the universe is submerged in an
eminently subtle fluid, which he thought should be named ani-
mal-magnetic fluid, because it can be compared to the fluid of
the magnet; that this fluid impregnates all bodies, and trans-
mits to them the impression of motion ; that it insinuates itself
into, and circulates through, all the fibres of the nervous system ;
and that it may be accumulated, when the magnetizer wills it,
in buckets, tubs, &c., and especially in the organs of the magnet-
izer who transmits it to the magnetized. This hypothetical
fluid will remind the classical reader of the chain uniting all
beings" of Hesiod, and the ** soul of the world" of Plato.

With Mesmer's operations began the modern interest in ani^
mal magnetism, whatever its antiquity may be. In 1778, he
arrived in Paris, and for five or six years made a great noise by
his experiments. The king appointed a commission, consisting
of five members of the Royal Academy, and four members of
the Faculty of Medicine, to report upon Mesmer's exhibition.
Franklin was a member of the commission ; but he was at the
time unwell, and unable to attend its sittings.

The commission, in their elaborate Report, allow that in what
they witnessed, there was something that seemed the working
of a mysterious agent. They reduced Mesmer's exhibitions to
four classes : first, those which could be explained on physio-
logical grounds ; second, those which were contrary to the laws
of magnetism ; third, those where the imagination of the mes-
merized person was the source of the phenomena ; and fourth,
facts which led them to admit a special agent. One member of
the commission, the eminent Laurent de Jussieu, became a con-
vert to Mesmer's views, and testified to "several well-verified
facts, independent of the imagination."

In the year 1826, the French Academy of Medicine appointed
a second commission. They labored diligently for five years,
and presented a report (June, 1831) through Dr. Husson. It is

REPORT ON MESMERISM.

signed by nine members of the commission, two only, Messrs.
Double and Magendie, having declined to assist at the investi-
gations. The commission admit nearly all the important facts
of animal magnetism.

" It is demonstrated to us," they declare, " that magnetic
sleep has been produced in circumstances where the magnetized
persons have not been able to see or gain any knowledge of the
means employed to determine it." The magnetizer being in a
separate apartment, and the subject wholly unaware of his inten-
tion, the sleep was induced through the mere operation of the
magnetizer*s will. We have ourselves repeatedly tested this
phenomenon here admitted by the commission.

The Report speaks of a terrible operation (the removal of the
right breast) which was performed by M. Cloquet upon Madame
Plantin. , During the twelve minutes that the operation lasted,
the invalid, previously magnetized, ** continued to converse
calmly with the operator, giving not the slightest evidence of
sensation."

The late Dr. Valentine Mott, of New York, who was present
at this operation, added his personal testimony in our presence
to the truth of the foregoing statement.

In regard to clairvoyance, the commission report several
facts. Among others, they speak of a law student, M. Villa-
grand, whose eyelids were kept closed by the different members
of the commission; but who, nevertheless, recognized cards
entirely new, and read from a book open before him. In short,
the interior life, the perception of the state of the body, the
prevision of crises, the instinctive prescription of remedies, are
forcibly attested in the Report.

"The magnetized person," it says, "can not only be acted
upon, but he can, without his knowledge, be thrown into and
aroused from a complete somnambulic condition, when the
operator is out of his sight, at a certain distance from him, and
separated by doors. . . . The phenomenon of clairvoyance takes
place even with the fingers pressed tightly over the eyelids.
The previsions of two somnambulists, relative to their health,
were realized with remarkable accuracy."

164

PLANCHETTE.

•The Academy was rather astonished at the Report, and for a
long time refused to discuss it. But the experiments continued
to multiply. Insensibility to pain, during terrible operations,
was one of the phenomena that was regarded as most wonder-
ful. Pistols were discharged close to the heads of the somnam-
bulists without making them start; without even interrupting
the sentence they had commenced.

Facts like these could not long be ignored, nor could the
Report of the eleven commissioners be silently consigned to
oblivion. The Academy then decided to discuss it; and the
result was, that they refused to print the Report, voting only
for the autograph copy, which, as Count Gasparin tells us, re-
mains shut up in the archives of the Academy of Medicine!
"To deny these phenomena," he says, "one must also deny
natural somnambulism, assuredly not less extraordinary than
magnetic somnambulism. Inasmuch as the existence of nat-
ural somnambulists cannot be denied (and who will deny it?),
little will be gained by contesting mesmerism."

M. Georget, to whom we have already referred, thus ex-
presses himself : "My somnambulists are so insensible to sound,
that the very loudest noises, produced unexpectedly to them, do
not cause them the slightest emotion. Yet they will always
hear the magnetizer." A phenomenon we have ourselves fre-
quently experienced in somnambulists; as we also have the
following, described by M. Rostan : " The outward life ceases ;
the somnambulist lives within himself, completely isolated from
the exterior world ; this isolation is especially complete for the
two senses of sight and hearing. . . . The eyes of the majority
of somnambulists are so insensible to light, that the lashes have
been burned without their testifying the least impression ; if the
lids are raised, and the fingers passed rapidly in front of the
eye, the immobility remains complete. . . . And yet they are
conscious of the objects which surround them ; they avoid with
the greatest address obstacles in their path."

The French commissioners mention some experiments in
which rare powers of detecting disease were manifested by

ARAGQ QX MESMERISM.

165

somnambulists. Internal symptoms, inappreciable to the eye,
were described by them, and the correctness of the descrfp-
tion afterwards verified by a post-mortem examination of the
bodies.

M. de J^uysegur says of a peasant whom he had magnetized,
"I have compelled him to move quickly about on his seat, as if
dancing to a tune, which, singing mentally myself, I made him
repeat aloud. ... I have no occasion to speak to him ; I think
in his presence; he understands and answers me."

" Having performed," says Dr. Bertrand, " on my first som-
nambulist the process by which I usually awakened her, exer-
cising at the same time a firm will to the contrary, she was
seized with strong convulsive movements. * What is the matter
with you?' said I. * Indeed,' she replied, *you tell me to awake,
and yet you do not will that I shall awake.' " Dr. Bertrand says
that he has thrown into the somnambulic state a person a hun-
dred leagues from him.

M. Filassier relates that a young somnambulist described at
Paris, minute by minute, the various acts, the attitudes, and
even the secret thoughts of her mother, who was at Arcis-sur-
Aube. "Every possible precaution," he adds, "was taken to
ascertain the truth regarding this vision into space. The
inquiry was conducted by a family of intelligence and strict
integrity, in connection with some conscientious physicians.
The lucidness of Mile. Clarice was in all cases justified by the
event."

The celebrated Arago, in an article on Mesmerism, says,
"The man who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the
word if/tposs/dlcy is wanting in prudence. . . . Nothing, for
example, in all the wonders of somnambulism, is looked upon
with more mistrust than an oft-repeated assertion touching the
faculty, possessed by certain persons in a crisis state, of decipher-
ing a letter at a distance by means of the foot, the hand, or the
stomach. Yet, I do not doubt that the suspicions of even
the most rigidly critical minds will be removed, after having
reflected on the ingenious experiments in which Moser pro-

PLANCHETTE.

ducedf also at a distance, very distinct images of all sorts of
objects on all sorts of bodies, and in the most complete daiit-

** The phenomena we are made to observe in somnambulism,"
snys Deleuze, "demonstrate the distinction of the. two sub-
»tAnceSt the double existence of the interior man and of the
exterior man in the same individual : they offer the direct proof
of the spirituality of the soul, and the answer to all objections
that have been raised against its immortality." "Among the
men who have made magnetism their study, there are, unfortu-
nately, some materialists. I cannot conceive how it is possible
that many of the phenomena witnessed by them — such as sight
at a distance, prevision, the action of the will, the communica-
tion of the thoughts without external signs — could have failed to
appear in their eyes as sufficient proof of the spirituality of the
soul."

"The repose of the outer," says Townshend, "is an absolute
condition for the revelation of the inner, sensibility. We all may
feel that, in order to call up before our mind*s eye the face of a
dear friend, or the beauties of a familiar landscape, we must
retreat from the obtrusive impulses of the external world.
Would we rise to a yet higher discernment of remembered
objects, we must yet more calmly check the beating of our
pulses, until we pass into that state of mind so beautifully-
described by Wordsworth, —

• That serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul :
While, with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy.
Wo see into the life of things.*

**Th<* we»meric vision, or clairvoyance, has been gravely and
giHi)\\Uy pronounced to be * physically and physiologically im-

AUTHENTICATED PREDICTION.

possible.' How can we reply to this? Only, I suppose, as
Pascal did to some one who asserted that it was impossible
for God, being so great, to busy himself about our little world, —
* To decide such a question, one ought to be great indeed.* "

Impossible is nowhere to be found,
Except, perhaps, in the fool's calendar."

Dr. Edwin Lee, in his " Report upon the Phenomena of Clair-
voyance " (London, 1843), mentions the case of the prediction
of the death of the king of Wiirtemberg by two different som-
nambulists: the one having foretold the event four years
beforehand ; the other, in the spring of the same year, mentioned
the exact day, in the month of October, as also the disease
(apoplexy).

" The exact cofhcidence," says Dr. Lee, " of the event with
the predictions is not doubted at Stuttgard; and, a fortnight
ago, Dr. Klein, who is now in England, accompanying the
Crown Prince of Wtirtemberg, having been introduced to me, I
took the opportunity of asking him about the circumstance,
which he acknowledged was as has been stated, saying, more-
over, that his father was physician to the king, who, on the
morning of the day on which the attack occurred, was in very
good health and spirits."

Shelley, the poet, appears to have been partially somnambulic
on several occasions. He was also sensitive to mesmeric influ-
ence. Williams, who was drowned with Shelley, says in a note
in his diary shortly before the event, " After tea, walked with
Shelley on the terrace. . . . Observing him sensibly affected,
I depianded of him if he was in pain; but he only answered,
by saying, * There it is again I there ! * He recovered after some
time, and declared that he saw, as plainly as he then saw me, a
naked child (Byron's Allegra, who had recently died) rise from
the sea, and clasp its hands as if in joy, smiling at him. This
was a trance that it required some reasoning and philosophy to
wake him from entirely, so forcibly had the visions operated on
his mind."

i68

PLANCHBTTB.

Almost every family has its tradition of some event like the
following: The Pacific Hotel, in St. Louis, was destroyed by
fire in February, 1858; and twenty-one lives were lost on the
occasion. On the night of the fire, a little brother of Mr. Henry
Rochester, living at home with his parents, near Avon, in the
State of New York, awoke some time after midnight with
screaming and tears, saying that the hotel in St. Louis was on
fire, and that his brother Henry was burning to death. So
intense were his alarm and horror, that it was with considerable
difliculty he could be quieted. On the following day, at noon,
the parents received a telegram from St. Louis, confirming the
little boy's dream in every particular.

Well-authenticated instances of spontaneous clairvoyance like
this could be collected from the newspapers of the last ten years
till the record would fill volumes. Not many years, since a New-
Orleans merchant, being in Paris, woke up from sleep one night,
having heard, as he thought, the voice of his son uttering the
words, "Father, I*m dying." So much impressed was he by
this, that he got out of bed, lighted a candle, and made a record
of the occurrence, stating the exact hour by the clock, in his
note-book. When he arrived in New Orleans, a few weeks
afterwards, the first friend he met told him of his son*s death,
and added, " His last words were, * Father, Tm dying.* '* The
merchant took out his note-book, pointed to the record,
and afterwards learned that his son had died at the precise hour
named, after making the proper allowance for difference of longi-
tude between Paris and New Orleans.

Bacon recognizes a natural divination proceeding from the
internal power of the soul. " The mind," he tells us, " abstracted
or collected in itself, and not diff'used in the organs of the body,
has, from the natural power of its own essence, some foreknowl-
edge of future things ; and this appears chiefly in sleep, ecstasies,
and the near approach of death."

"The phenomena of clairvoyance, prevision, and second
sight," says De Boismont, " depend on a sudden illumination
of the cerebral organ, which calls into activity sensations that
have hitherto lain dormant."

NARRATIVE OP REV. DR. BUSHNELL. 1 69

Rather do they depend, we should say, on an intromission
from latent spiritual forces, called into action by some abnormal
conditions affecting the relations of the physical to the spiritual
body.

De Boismont, whose work on *' Hallucinations" (Paris, 1852)
has a high reputation in France, admits that some cases of
prevision " appear to spring from an enlarged faculty of per-
ception, a supernatural tntuitioji.**

To our instances of clairvoyance in dreams, we add the follow-
ing perfectly well-authenticated case, related (1858) by the Rev.
Dr. Horace Bushnell. *' As I sat by the fire," he says, " one
stormy November night, in a hotel-parlor, in the Napa Valley
of California, there came in a most venerable and benignant-
looking person, with his wife. The stranger was Captain Yount,
a man who came over into California, as a trapper, more than
forty years ago. Here he has lived, apart from the great world
and its questions, acquiring an immense landed estate, and
becoming a kind of acknowledged patriarch in the country.
His tall, manly person, and his gracious, paternal look, as
totally unsophisticated in the expression as if he had never
heard of a philosophic doubt or question in his life*, marked him
as the true patriarch.

"The conversation turned, I know not how, on spiritism and
the modern necromancy; and he discovered a degree of incli-
nation to believe in the reported mysteries. His wife, a much
younger person, and apparently a Christian, intimated that
probably he was predisposed to this kind of faith by a very pe-
culiar experience of his own, and evidently desired that he might
be drawn out by some intelligent discussion of his queries.

** At my request, he gave me his story. About six or seven
years previous, in a mid-winter's night, he had a dream, in which
he saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants, arrested
by the snows of the mountains, and perishing rapidly by cold
and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, marked by
a huge perpendicular front of white-rock cliff ; he saw the men
cutting oflf wkat appeared to be tree-tops rising out of deep

170

PLANCHETTB.

gulfs of snow; he distinguished the very features of the persons,
and the look of their particular distress.

He woke, profoundly impressed with the distinctness and
apparent reality of his dream. At length he fell asleep, and
dreamed exactly the same dream again. In the morhing he
could not expel it from his mind. Falling in, shortly, with an
old hunter comrade, he told him the story, and was only the
more deeply impressed by his recognizing, without hesitation,
the scenery of the dream. This comrade had come over the
Sierra by the Carson-Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in
the pass answered exactly to his description. By this the unso-
phisticated patriarch was decided. He immediately collected a
company of men, with mules and blankets and all necessary
provisions. The neighbors were laughing, meantime, at his
credulity. * No matter,* said he : * I am able to do this, and I
will ; for I verily believe that the fact is according to my dream.'
The men were sent into the mountains, one hundred and fifty
miles distant, directly to the Carson- Valley Pass. And there
they found the company in exactly the condition of the dream,
and brought in the remnant alive."

Dr. Bushnell adds, that a gentleman present said to him,
" You need have no doubt of this ; for we Californians all know
the facts and the names of the families brought in, who now
look upon our venerable friend as a sort of savior." These
names he gave, together with the residence of each; and Dr.
Bushnell avers that he found the Californians everywhere ready
to second the old man's testimony. " Nothing could be more
natural than for the good-hearted patriarch himself to add that
the brightest thing in his life, and that which gave him the
greatest joy, was his simple faith in that dream."

luHtances similar to the foregoing could be multiplied indefi-
nitely. Wc have heard of the case of the brother of an ancestor
ol'our own, whose ship was struck by lightning, the consequence
of which was that he and his crew were compelled to escape
lV\>m the wreck in the long-boat, where they were exposed for
mauy days, at an inclement season, in the middle of the Atlantic.

CLAIRVOYANCE PROVES IMMORTALITY. Ijt

The captain of a vessel sailing from the same port dreamed of
seeing them, and was so vividly impressed by the vision, that
he determined on altering his course, and going back in search
of the boat. This he did, against the expostulations of his
mates. On the morning of the third day he fell in with the
boat, and rescued the occupants of it.

The phenomena of clairvoyance in the somnambulism induced
by mesmerism were first noticed, in modern times, in the year
1784, bf the Marquis de Puys^gur, a disciple of Mesmer. That
these phenomena afford conclusive evidence of spiritual faculties
latent in man, and developed under certain circumstances even
in this life, is a conviction at which most persons, who have
given much thought to the subject, have finally arrived. We
see no escape from the conviction. The added marvels of
Spiritualism are hardly needed to give it force; but let them be
none the less welcome on that account.

We need not multiply instances of clairvoyance, clairau-
dience, &c. The fact is established, if any fact can be by
human testimony. It needs but a single experiment with Mr.
Charles H. Foster, in pellet-reading, to shatter the most elab-
orate structure of Sadducean materialism from turret to founda-
tion-stone. If the faculties of sight and hearing, in their highest
manifestations, are not dependent on their proper physical
organs, who can rationally argue that they are likely to be
destroyed by the dissolution of the physical body itself ?

Mr. S. B. Brittan, one of the earliest to accept the facts of
phenomenal Spiritualism, remarks, ** The individuality of man
does not belong to his body ; but inheres in a supra-mortal and
indestructible constitution. . . . Within this corporeal frame there
is another body of more ethereal elements. ... If there were no
inward form or spiritual constitutioh, the molecular eliminations
would periodically destroy the identity of man."

" Our soul," says Joubert, " is ever fully alive. It is so in the
sick ; in those who have fainted ; in the dying ; it is still morp
alive after death."

"The soul," says Zschokke, himself a clairvoyant, "has the

172

PLANCIIETTE.

faculty directly, and without inference, both of perceiving occur-
. fences at a distance, and of being sensible of future events. The
ancients, who knew as much as we do of the properties of the
human soul, observed this inexplicable power of perception
and foresight, especially in cases of nervous weakness, and in
the dying."

That the instances of clairvoyance on the part of the ancient
oracles were numerous, no student of history can deny, without
rejecting, through simple prejudice, a vast amount of explicit
and concurrent human testimony. The genuineness of the
oracles was conceded by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophi-
lus of Alexandria, Tatian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Eu-
sebius, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Cyril Alexandrinus, and others
of the Greek fathers ; and by Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Tertullian,
Lactantius, Maternus-Firnicius, Jerome, Augustine, and others
of the Latin. Thus, Augustine writes, "They [the spirits] for
the most part foretell what they are about to perform ; for often
they receive power to send diseases by vitiating the atmosphere.
Sometimes they predict what they foresee by natural signs,
which signs transcend human sense; at others they learn, by
outward bodily tokens, human plans, even though unspoken,
and thus foretell things to the astonishment of those ignorant
of the existence of such plans."

The Jews before Christ, and the Fathers after, believed that
departed spirits lurked about images, spoke in oracles, controlled
omens, and in various ways encouraged men to worship them.

If human testimony is to be taken as of any account, com-
pared with the mere speculations of closet professors, putting
forth decisions on matters they refuse to investigate practically,
this question of spiritual phenomena is decided. "Why, then,"
asks Cicero, " doubt the certainty of this argument, if reason
consent, if facts, people, nations, Greeks, barbarians, our ances-
tors, and the universal faith ? If chief philosophers, poets, the
wisest of men, founders of republics, builders of cities? Or,
discarding the united consent of the human kind, shall we wait
for brutes to speak ? "

THE SPIRITUAL IN THE MATERIAL.

" Si divinatio est, dii sunt," if there is divination^ there must be
gods (or spirits), was a common saying of the ancient Romans.
One authentic instance of clairvoyance satisfied them of the
great fact of spiritual existence.

"That we should rather evolve from our present corporeal
elements the body that is to be ours, than begin existence de
novo^** says Townshend; "that, in other words, we should really
possess a fundamental life, or body, incapable of passing away
with the grosser covering that envelops it; that, at death, we
should retain something physically from our actual condition, —
seems pointed out to us by all the analogies of nature.

" Everywhere we behold that one state includes the embryo
of the next, not metaphysically, but materially; and entering
on a new scene of existence is not so much a change as a con-
tinuation of what went before. The very rudiments of organs,
intended in a higher stage of animal life to be useful, are found,
uselessly, as it were, appearing in the lower classes of animated
creatures ; or, stranger still, lying in embryo in the same creat-
ure in one state, only to be developed in another. The wings
that form the butterfly lie folded in the worm.

"We should, then, a friori, expect to find the principle that
individualizes man, and is the true medium of his instruction,
attached to him from the beginning, and that the germs of
future capacities, physical not less than intellectual, should b^
discoverable in his constitution.

"The dissolution of this coarser covering is, by us, called
death ; that is, we seem unto men to die : but with our inner
body we never part; and, consequently, by that we still retain
our hold upon individual existence. As Leibnitz has remarked,
' There is no such thing as death, if that word be understood with
rigorous and metaphysical accuracy. The soul never quits com-
pletely the body with which it i^s united, nor does it pass from one
body into another with which it had no connection before: a
^metamorphosis takes place ; but there is no metempsychosis.' ♦

* Meta mor/hosUy a change of form cr shape ; transfonnation. MtUmpsyckosit%
the passage of the soul from one body into another.

PLANCHBTTB.

** Man 18 shown by the facts of mesmerism to be capable of
increased sensitive power. To what end, if hereafter this in-
crease of power become not permanent? Would wings be
folded in the worm if they were not one day to enable it to fly?
We cannot think so poorly of creative power, or of thrifty
nature. . . . Wretched, indeed, must be the view of man which
confines him to this bank and shoal of time ; which does not
regard him, and all his glorious endowments, as intended /or a
series of existences^

"What do we understand by the term spiritual says the
Rev. B. F. Bowles. " May we not all agree upon the common
idea that the spiritual is the unseen, and, to our senses, intan-
gible? I think we may. Now, that there is an unseen force
within us, constituting our interior personality, and that mani-
fests itself through these outward forms, seems self-evident. It
is this that is the source of all outward action, and that receives
from without all impressions. It is this that constitutes the lot
the me<, and to which we refer when we use these pronouns.
We are all conscious of this unseen self. And when we speak
of seeing, of hearing, of tasting, of smelling, of feeling, we
refer to a being who possesses all these senses, but who exists
behind the organs of their outward manifestation. I do not
properly say * my eye sees,* or * my hand feels,* but rather * / see
through my eye,* and * feel with or through my hand.' Nor do I
say, * my brain thinks,* but * / think with my brain.* And our
common consciousness approves.

"And the one who possesses all these senses is never seeu,
I never have seen you, nor you me. We have only seen the
manifestations of each other. The individual who dwells in
either of the living forms before me, or the one who occupied
the form that is dead, has never to material senses been tangible.
We have never come directly in contact with him or her, but
always through the mediation of the outer form. Each of us,
then, in our real self, answers to the common idea of spirit:
we are intangible.

"And, again, each of us, in his voluntary action, betrays

THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

purposes and desires, intelligence and thought; and surely we
cannot attribute these to tangible matter. It would be repug-
nant to all our sense of fact, to affirm that flesh could think and
purpose. We inevitably refer all such action to the unseen. It
is the unseen one that loves, and that we love.

"And now with reference to the spiritual body^ it seems
natural to conclude that these secret powers exist in combina-
tiouy forming an interior being. We refer them all to one, and
yet each is distinct. The same being sees, thinks, and loves.
And yet seeing, thinking, and loving are quite different. There
is, then, an organization interior to this physical organization,
possessing in itself each of the senses, and all of the intellectual
and emotional power we see expressed through the exterior
form. And, being so, it is in a proper sense a body. It is in all
things, but its texture, like the body we see. Only in this (its
texture), can we mention aught that the body possesses that the
spirit hath not. Indeed, except this and the shape of humanity,
the body hath nothing when the spirit hath gone out. It hath
no senses, no power. Here, then, we have not only the exist-
ence of a spirit, but a spiritual body^ in the sense of organi-
zation.

"But what of its substance? Hath it substance? or, is it
without? I have often received the impression from friends,
that they supposed a spirit to be without substance. Perhaps
they had no clear conception of what a spirit is. Perhaps I was
unable to receive their conception. But, so far as able, it
seemed to be, in the words of another, * the most definite con-
ception of nothing ever given to mankind.' And yet I think
it manifest that spirit hath substance. To see this truth, let us
inquire what we mean by substance. Do we mean 9ome particu-
lar thing? No; for every thing is substance. Do we not mean
by this term something, in distinction from xr^thing? Can we
mean any thing else? Borrowing an illustration, then, think
of the millions of human bodies now being moved about by
spirits. They would all stop, were the spirits to go out. Is this
immense amount of substance moved without substance,
moved by nothing?

176

PLANCHETTE.

" Further, to illustrate, think of the material universe all in
motion. Go with the astronomer and count the worlds. En-
deavor, then, to conceive of those unseen even by him. Ask
yourselves of the immensity of their weight. You cannot
answer. Well, they are all upheld; they are all in motion with
inconceivable velocity. And by what? By nothing? By no
substance, which is nothing? No; but by spirit, which is the
greatest of all things. By an immeasurable organization of
spirit. By that which constitutes all that is unchangeable
in the universe. By God, who is a spirit, * without vai:iable-
ness or shadow of turning.* And the effort to conceive of God
without substance, is perilous to our conviction of his ex-
istence. And so of the human spirit. In such an attempt,
we grapple with the impossible, and are worsted in the stnig-
gle

" In spirituality, then, I think you must bear me witness, there
is nothing to forbid the thought that spirits out of the flesh
reach and affect those in the flesh, thus triumphing over the
death of the body. It becomes, then, a question of fact^ to be
determined by other data. In the absence of experience., this
may be doubted^ but not on this ground dented. In the pres-
ence of experience, and on the part of such as have the
evidence of their own senses to this point, it must be aflirmed.
By the use of their senses they are to be judged, and must
judge.

** Such is some of the evidence I draw from our common knowl-
edge; such the inferences from common ground, and which, for
this reason, I think should find general acceptance. Evidence
that * there is a spiritual body^* indestructible ^ independent of the
physical, and hence immortal."

It will be seen, however, as we proceed, that the spiritual
hypothesis is not the only one which human ingenuity has
invented for the phenomena of clairvoyance and of Spiritual-
ism. Mr. H. G. Atkinson, who was associated with Miss Mar-
tineau some years since in the authorship of an atheistic book,
in which some of the phenomena of mesmerism were accepted

SPIRITUALISM ANTICIPATED.'

177

and attributed, as they were by Dr. Elliotson,* to exclusively
material causes, professes to be not at all inconvenienced by the
added wonders of Spiritualism. He admits them all, but is too
uncompromising a Comtean to allow that they point to any
thing outside of this barrier of flesh and blood.

Seers and spirits may protest as much as they please; nay,
the latter may show themselves in their habits as they lived, —
Mr. Atkinson is inexorable.

"I think it can now be shown," he says, referring to the
spiritual phenomena, " that there is not any very essential dis-
tinction bcttveen these extraordinary facts and the ordinary ones
of every-day life ! "

Shut out from the spiritual hypothesis by his whole past phi-
losophy, Mr. Atkinson consoles himself, after the manner of the
antediluvian philosopher, who, according to the profane, was
shut out from the ark by Noah, and who revenged himself
on the patriarch by telling him that **itwas no sort of conse-
quence ; for he believed it was not going to be much of a shower
after all."

A fact of importance, in connection with the history of
animal magnetism, has been recently brought to light by the
French Spiritualists. This fact is no other than that the
magnetists of France anticipated, by at least half a century,
the knowledge, since made the world's property by the events

* Dr. Elliotson surpassed even Mr. Atkinson in the enthusiasm with which he
sought in a bald materialism for a sufficient explanation of the phenomena of life.
But, as we have already seen (page 20), Dr. Elliotson came right at last. The " Lon-
don Spiritual Magazine " tells us that when modem Spiritualism was introduced, he
was one of the most scornful of its opponents. He separated himself on the question
from his old friend and colleague in the management of the "Zolst," Dr. Ashburner;
l<) whom it must have been a source of great satisfaction, after years of estrangement,
that Dr. Elliotson's conviction of the truth of Spiritualism was the means of re-estab-
lishing their former friendship. Spiritualism was not with Dr. Elliotson a conviction
barren of results. It revolutionized the philosophy of a lifetime. He bitterly
lamented the misdirected efforts he had made, however conscientiously, in the pro-
mulgation of materialistic principles. He became a thoroughly changed man, and
changed in all respects for tlie better. ^

.78

PLANCHETTB.

at H^desville ; a fact which is proved by the publication of the
correspondence of the two celebrated French magnetic philoso-
phers, Messrs. Billot and Deleuze, in two volumes, in 1836. This
correspondence commenced in 1829; and in it we find M. Billot
asserting that there are none of these marvellous things that he
has not witnessed during the last thirty years.*

This carries his knowledge of spiritual phenomena back as
far as 1789, the period of the commencement of the French
Revolution ; into the period, in fact, of Lavater, Jung-Stilling,
Kerner, Goethe, San Martin, &c. These phenomena, not only
known to, but avowed by, those distinguished men, were, it now
appears, equally well known to MM. Billot and Deleuzc, who,
as scientific men, had not, however, dared to reveal them. The
sects of the Initiated and the Illuminati were well acquainted
with these phenomena in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies; and the only difference to note is, that then they were
familiar only to a few who kept the knowledge of them to a
certain extent secret, and that now they are familiar to the pub-
lic at large.

But there is another circumstance especially noteworthy in
this discovery of Spiritualism amongst the magnetists, which is,
that the class of scientific men among them has been as a body
stoutly opposed to the admission of Spiritualism as a fact. In
England, we know with what pertinacity Dr. EUiotson and
others resisted for many years the conviction that spiritual
phenomena underlie those of magnetism; or, in other words,
mesmerism. So in France, Dupotet, Morin, and the rest of
them fought hard against this conviction ; and so much so, that
M. Morin, the successor of Baron Dupotet, has constantly re-
sisted the invitations of the Spiritualists to witness spiritual
phenomena.

Here, however, we have the curious fact of two of the most

* For this abstract of the correspondence, we are largely indebted to a paper by
M^TiUiain Howitt (July, 1868). We can mention no man who has been more earnest,
inde&tis&blet and courageous in his advocAy of the truths of Spiritualism than Mr.
Howitt

BILLOT AND DELEUZE. ^ 1 79

celebrated magnetic philosophers of France, avowing after a
concealment of the fact through a career of half a century, that
they all the time, whilst prosecuting their magnetic inquiries,
had become fully aware of other and still more wonderful phe-
nomena supervening and arising out of those inquiries which
they prosecuted with no such expectations. These arose like
apparitions upon them, startling and astonishing them, like the
genius which stood before Aladdin when he rubbed his lamp,
meaning only to polish it, and with no idea further from his
mind than that his friction was the invocation of a spirit. So
MM. Billot and Deleuze, experimenting only in magnetism,
and expecting none but strictly natural though abstruse results,
found that they were pressing on those secret and mysterious
springs and laws of life which awake the attention of the
inhabitants of the invisible, and cause them to manifest their
presence.

It is still more remarkable that these two great magnetists —
who had published, each, work after work, and whose names
were famous in that science — did not work in company, or with
a knowledge of each other's proceedings. They had each their
own avowed theory, differing greatly one from the other; and
these they had propounded and defended with zeal and persist-
ency, till they h^d acquired a certain character of antagonism.
All this time, however, their writings bore to the ordinary reader
no traces of any thing but the legitimate facts and doctrines of
magnetism. But, to these great antagonist magnates of science,
there was something in their language which awoke a more
than ordinary sensation in each other; and, opening a corre-
spondence, they began to approach each other, putting forth the
delicate feelers of an intense curiosity, grounded on a conviction
that each possessed secret knowledge that he had not yet laid
open to the light, and that this knowledge was, in reality, the
property of both. They had each a consciousness that, whilst
they had been going along separate and even hostile paths, they
had been treading the very satpe enchanted ground, and were
twins in a life which they had hitherto hidden from each other
and from mankind.

iSo

PLANCHETTK.

On the 24th of March, 1829, M. Deleuze wrote to M. Billot,
complaining that certain magnetizers made their experiments
out of mere curiosity. To this implied censure Billot replied,
on the 9th of April, that modern magnetizers had many humilia-
tions to suffer from the jealousies of their confreres; but he now
abandoned his cause to God, who had done great things'for him.
"Yes!" said he, advancing more boldly, "I have seen, I have
understood all that it is permitted to man to see and know ! "
Still going further in his enthusiasm, and stimulated by the
conviction that Deleuze himself had arrived at discoveries like
his own, he says, " Permit me to observe that all that you write
seems to me to betray une arrihre fensde (an after thought).
Your theory is only a solemn ruse to avoid scandalizing the
espriis forts who will have nothing of the positive."

The ice was now broken, and the two great magnetists pro-
ceed to make a clean breast of it to each other. M. Billot, never-
theless, is by far the more open, and is ready to throw off the
cautious disguise that they both had worn for so many years.
It turns out, in the end, that they have seen nearly all the phe-
nomena of modern Spiritualism, — apparitions, elevations of the
person into the air, the fact of material substances being brought
by spirits, obsessions and possessions by spirits, and nearly all
the wonders which the ancient philosophers and the priests of
different churches have declared as truths; and all this, be
it remembered, long before the knockings at Hydesville opened
up the great drama of renewed spirit-intercourse in our time.
But it will be interesting to trace this remarkable correspond-
ence a little further in its natural course.

On the 27th February, 1830, M. Billot writes to M. Deleuze,
assuring him that he stated to him the whole truth regarding
the extraordinary phenomena manifested through his clairvoy-
ante. Mademoiselle Mathieu, and that he will never deviate
from this in his communication of his experiences ; and he pro-
ceeds to reveal to him things which, he says, he will probably
regand as reveries, and then adds, "You would not have com-
bated the theory of spirits for these forty years, if, like me, vou

SPIRITUALISM ANTICIPATED. l8l

had had under your eyes and your hands the masses of facts
which have compelled me to adopt it." He then gives some
curious facts concerning a clairvoyante in a state of wake-
fulness.

Deleuze, on the 15th of May, avows that he has seen lucids
in that state. "Dr. Chase," he says, *^reports having seen the
same; "'and then he makes the candid confession, "I have
suppressed many things in my works, because it was not yet the
time to disclose them." Billot, on the i6th of June, tonches
on certain particulars of somnambulism, which Deleuze in his
writings had affected to treat as inexplicable ; but he insinuates
that he is quite satisfied that they now understand each other on
these points. After referring to various passages in Deleuze*8
writings, " between us. Monsieur," continues Billot, " what
need of so much reserve ? In spite of your reticences, I under-
stand you."

In his reply, on the 24th of September, Deleuze treats of
matter at great length, and at first professes to think that the
only thing which proves the communication of spirits with us,
are apparitions; but again, thawing a little more, he says,
if his health permit, he will write an article in the ** Hermes " on
psychical phenomena, in which he will free himself from the
reserve which he too, hitherto, imposed on himself, and of
which M. Billot has divined the real cause. "These facts,"
he says, "are now so numerous and so well known, that it is
time to speak the truth."

On the 24th of June, 183 1, M. Billot wrote to M. Deleuze,
that in reading his works, he had seen that certain phenomena
had been already familia/ to him before he himself had entered
on his career, and that there wasihothing o£ the marvellous of
which he had not been a witness during the thirty or forty years
of his magnetic experience. " If you have not made mention
of these things," he added, "you have lost your reason for
keeping silence." To this M. Deleuze, on the 9th of July, re-
plied that he had designedly avoided the statement of nfervel-
I0U8 factg, considering it not always necessary to show thes« to

l82

PLANCHETTE.

the incredulous, as being indeed not the most likely way to con-
vince them.

Billot then went on much further with his cautious corre-
spondent, who, though he did not reveal much, was forced to
confess that his friend had penetrated into his secret, and that
he knew a great deal. ^" The time," said M. Billot, " is come
when I ought to have no further concealment from you. I
repeat that I have seen and known all that it is permitted to man
to sefe and know. I have been witness of an ecstasy, not such as
Dr. Bertrand imagines, but I have seen magnetic clairvoyants
with stigmata. I have seen obsessions and possessions, which
have been dissipated by a single word : I have seen many other
things, which others have seen also, but which the spirit of this
age has not permitted them to reveal. I am an esfrit fort ; and
that which the priests have not been able to do now for many
years, magnetism has accomplished. The truths of reliffion
have been demonstrated by it*^

He then proceeds to relate some of these revelations, which
very much resemble the teachings of the ancient philosophers,
mingled with those of Christianity, — doctrines which prepared
the way for the inculcations of Spiritualism. Superior intelli-
gences, he says, presented themselves ; presided at seances^ and
manifested themselves by the delicious odors which they diffused
around them. The ambrosia of the mythologists, the odor of
sanctity of the Church were discovered to be realities. Evil
and unclean spirits also presented themselves ; but the clairvoy-
ants immediately recognized them (July 23, 1831). These and
other statements, M. Billot says, which he extracted from the
journals of the siances, could never hfive seen the light of day,
had he not deemed it for the interest of the great science to
confide them to the bosom of prudent and discreet friendship ;
and, on the 9th of September, he announces that he is about to
proceed to more substantial proofs of the apparition of spirits, —
such as, he says, it will be impossible to deny or to diminish :
for theie spirits were tangible ; you both saw and touched them.
Perhaps, he adds, M. Deleuze may think these things a little

PHENOMENA AMONG MAGNETISTS. 1^3

too marvellous for belief ; but his doubt will no longer be par-
donable when he may touch them himself, and touch them
again. What he says on September 30, must convince the most
skeptical: there is neither illusion nor vision. He and his co-.
secretaries have seen and felt, and he calls God to witness the
truth of it.

On the 6th of November, 1831, Deleuze writes, that he is
greatly grieved that the state of his health and his great age will
not permit him to make a journey to see M. Billot, as he most
anxiously desires ; that the immortality of the soul is proved to
Aim, and the possibility of communicating- with spirits ; but that,
personally, he has not seen facts equal to those cited by Billot.
Nevertheless, persons worthy of all confidence have made the
like reports to him. "I have this morning," he continues,
" seen a very distinguished physician, who has related to me
some of your facts, without naming you, and who gave me many
others of a like character. Amongst others, his clairvoyants
caused material objects to present themselves, I know not what to
think of all this, though I am as certain of the sincerity of my
medical friend, as I am of yours. I cannot conceive how spiritual
beings are able to carry material objects."

M. Billot, on the 25th of June, 1832, wrote that in the doctrine
of Spiritualism the question is not of opinions but of facts : these
are the things which lead to the truth; but neither the mag-
netizers nor the magnetized can reproduce these at will.

On another occasion, M. Deleuze remarks that " the clairvoy-
ant seizes rapports innumerable. He catches them with an
extreme rapidity : he. runs, in a minute, through a series of ideas
which, under ordinary circumstances, would demand many hours.
Time seems to disappear before him. He is himself astonished
at the variety and rapidity of these reflections. He is led to at-
tribute them to the inspiration of another intelligence. Anon,
he perceixes in himself this new being. He considers himself in
the clairvoyant sleep a different person from himself awake.
He speaks of himself in the third person, as some one whom he
has known, on whom be comments, whom he advises, and in

PLANCHETTE.

whom he takes more or less interest, as if himself in somnam-
bulism and himself awake were two diflferent persons."

M. Deleuze finishes by urging M. Billot to publish his experi-
ences, but with his habitual caution counsels him to suppress the
most astounding facts. Billot heroically determines to victimize
himself for the truth, to brave the sarcasms of the learned;
" For," he observes, " to talk of spirits in France, where the
majority of the magnetists hold fast by their accepted theory, of
merely material agencies, is to become an object of contemptuous
pity."

He was also aware of another difficulty, — the uncertainty. of
securing successful stances; which, whilst the causes affecting
them are but partially understood, so often fail in the presence
of the determinedly skeptical.

Such was the correspondence of the two celebrated magnetists,
at a time when Spiritualism in its present phase was yet unheard
of. The great facts of spiritual life thus bursting upon them in
pursuance of their scientific experiments in magnetism, and in
opposition to all their prejudices, as well as most contrary to
their expectations, must be regarded as one of the most curious
and most interesting events in the annals of Spiritualism. Be-
sides the transport of material objects by invisible .agents, the
spirits which appeared to them were solid to the touch, as they
have so often made themselves since. Living persons were ele-
vated in the air in their sdauces. Dr. Schmidt, of Vienna, and Dr.
Charpignon, of Orleans, also give some striking cases of deli-
cious odors, or cadaverous effluvia issuing from pure or impure
spirits which presented themselves : the m9St startling commu-
nications of facts otherwise unknown were made ; and they had
cases of obsession and possession as well as of successful exoi;-
cism.

After all the confessions of M. Deleuze, he afterwards was
greatly tempted, like Sir David Brewster, to recover favor with
his scientific and incredulous contemporaries. Becoming one of
the chiefs of magnetic initiation, he endeavored to weaken or to
neutralize the force of his avowals. A gentleman well instructed

BILLOT AND DELEUZE.

185

in these mysteries, wrote to him thus : "You have endeavored to
fortify your readers, in your journal, against the system of th«»
magnetists of the North, who admit superhuman powers a^
intermediates in certain magnetic phenomena. I would tak^
the liberty of observing to you that this is not at all a system
with them ; but the simple enunciation of a fact, that a great,
number of their somnambulists, raised to a high degree of lucid-
ity, have asserted that they were illuminated and conducted by a
spiritual guide."

The answer of Deleuze is worthy of attention : " The facts
which seem to prove the communications of souls separated from
niatter with those who are still united to it, are innumerable, as
I know. These are existent in all religions, are believed by all
nations, are recorded in all histories, may be collected in society;
and the phenomena of magnetism present a great number of
them. Yes : a great number of somnambulists have affirmed
that they have conversed with spiritual intelligences ; they have
been inspired and guided by them : and I will tell you why 1
have thought it best not to insist on such facts and proofs of
spirit communication. It is because I have feared that it might
excite the imagination, might trouble human reason, and lead to
dangerous consequences."

Deleuze did not, when thus challenged, walk backwards out of
his previous avowals, like some on the other side of the water :
he was only timid and cautious, not untruthful. The frank
bravery of M. Billot, in regard to a truth which he knew would
be unpopular, is deserving of the highest praise.

The author of these valuable papers has given a number of
other instances amongst the magnetists who have arrived at the
same conclusions as MM. Billot and Deleuze, in the same man-
ner. They have found themselves in contact with unmistakable
spirits, when they have been expecting merely the operations of
magnetic laws. Amongst these were M. Bertrand, 'physician,
and member of the Royal Society of Sciences. Baron Dupotet
declared that he had rediscovered in magnetism the spiritology
of the ancients, and that he himself believed in the world of
soirits.

PLANCHETTE.

" Let the savant" he says, " reject the doctrine of spiritual
appearances as one of the grand errors of the past ages ; but the
profound inquirer of to-day is compelled to believe this by a seri-
ous examination of facts."

Dupotet asserts the truth of all the powers assumed by anti-
quity and by the church, by all religions, indeed, such as work-
ing miracles and healing the sick. "When," he says, " lightning,
or other powerful agents of nature, produce formidable effects,
nobody is astonished ; but let an unknown element startle us, let
this element appear to obey thought, then reason rejects it; and,
nevertheless, it is a truth ; for we have seen and felt the effects of
this terrible power." Terrible, however, only when nature is not
understood as Spiritualism has revealed it. " If," adds Dupotet,
"the knowledge of ancient magic is lost, the facts remain on
which to reconstruct it." He exclaims, " No more doubt, no
more uncertainty: magic is rediscovered."

He then giyes a number of phenomena produced of a most
extraordinary kind, and laughs at those brave champions of sci-
ence who, far from danger, talk with a loud and firm tone, reason
on just what they themselves know, and pay no regard to the
practical knowledge of others ; who, in fact, hug their doubts, as
we, with more reason, hug our faith.

These avowals were made in 1840, long before the American
phenomena or those of Vienna were heard of. But as Spirit-
ualism began to show itself as a distinct faith, the majority of
magnetists took the alarm. Those who, like Messieurs Bertrand,
D'Hunin, Puys^gur, and Seguin, had stood on the very threshold
of Spiritualism, began to step back a step or two, and to shroud
themselves in mystery, and to shake their heads at the prospect
of awful consequences in pushing further on such a path.

"The magnetic forces cannot be explained," said Puys^gfur.
" We have no organs," saidM. Morin, " for discovering spiritual
beings." "The real causes of apparitions, of objects displaced,
of suspensions, and of a great portion of the marvellous," said
D'Hunin and Bertrand, " are inscrutable."

Seguin, who thought that magnetism would revolutionize the

IT IS ALL CLAIRVOYANCE.

whole of science, starts, and stands still: he finds himself on
the brink of a precipice. Inaccessible to danger, however, M.
Seguin would wish to pursue his researches ; but wisdom com-
mands him to stop on the edge of an abyss, which no man, he
affirms; can ever pass with impunity.

What is the precipice which M. Seguin and his fellow-magne-
tists see at their feet? Simply, the precipice of Spiritualism.
The spiritual world opens before them when they desire only to
deal with this. In the words of Baron Dupotet, " There is an
agent in space, whence we ourselves, our inspiration, and our
intelligence proceed ; and that agent is the spiritual world which
surrounds us." A step further, and the magnetists were aware
that they must cut the cable which held them to the rest of the
scientific world, and float away into the ocean of spiritual
causation. They must consent to forfeit the name of philoso-
phers, and to suffer that of fanatics in the mouths of the ma-
terial savans.

We find in a late number of the "London Spiritual Magazine,"
a paper, by Mr. R. H. Brown, on the relations of clairvoyance to
the facts of Spiritualism. We do but condense his admirably
clear and logical statement in the reniarks on the subject, which
follow to page 195 : —

** It is all clairvoyance ! " Such is the objection made by many
who have slightly investigated the spiritual phenomena. Thus
it is that Spiritualism has come to the aid of clairvoyance.
Before the advent of Spiritualism, clairvoyance was denounced
as the great "humbug" of the day. Nearly all the scientific
men of the land shook their heads, and lamented the credulous,
wonder-loving ignorance of poor human nature. Now, as the
world moves, and as the phenomena of Spiritualism come up,
these same wise gentlemen would use what they denounced as
the "humbug" of yesterday as the truth of to-day; that is, to
help them to explain these more advanced facts!

"It is all clairvoyance!" But what is clairvoyance? Its
phenomena may be briefly described as follows : Persons thrown
into the somnambulic trance by animal magnetism, through the

i88

PLANCHETTE.

agency of an operator, or falling into the same state involunta-
rily, have been known to see without the aid of the physical or
external organs of vision, and without the assistance of light.
Books are read as well in the darkness of night as in the full
glare of noonday. Objects and scenes, at great distances, far
beyond the reach of the external organs of vision, are seen and
described. The clear sight of the clairvoyant mind not only
penetrates through the most opaque and dense substances, but
also sees the thoughts that bud and blossom in the inmost re-
cesses of the soul. The past is illuminated, and its most hidden
passages revealed ; and the future, hidden by an impenetrable
veil from the normal eye, prophetically presents its yet unrolled
panorama, and stamps upon the clairvoyant mind the impress
of its coming form. This is clairvoyance. Now let me ask the
candid investigator what it is that sees without the physical eyes%
and without the assistance of light /

It is evident that neither the optic nerves nor the crystalline
lens are employed by those who read a book, amid the darkness
of midnight, unaided by a single ray of light. The answer to
this question is all-important; for therein, hidden, lies the golden
key which will unlock all the mysteries of Spiritualism. What
is normal sight? What is it that sees when the natural or
external eye, together with light, are the mediums of perception ?
It is evident that the mere fluid called light cannot see, neither
can the lens or humors of the eye, nor the optic nerve, nor a
combination of these ; for light and visual organs are only the
media by which perception is conveyed to that mysterious
something which lies hidden within.

In ordinary or normal sight, three things are employed : the
object, the eye, and the light which serves as the connecting link
or medium of contact between the eye and the object. The eye,
like a beautiful and delicate camera obscura, paints with fidelity
the picture of the exterior world upon the retina. // is the
immortal soul which stands behind the curtain, and gazes on the
shifting panorama.

Let the ftoul be absent, and eight ceases, though the organ be

CLAIRVOYANCE ENDS MATERIALISM.

perfect : it becomes but a common camera obscura, — the mere
arrangement of parts for the production of a picture. The
picture is perfect, but there is no spectator. When a person falls
into a state of profound abstraction, the eyes, though open, often
cease to convey any idea of sight to the soul. This is because
« the attention of the spectator behind the curtain is turned in
another direction : he does not regard the panorama which
moves along the darkened curtains of the eye. The materialists
reply to this, that sight is not the result of the attentive percep-
tion of the soul to the pictorial sensations of the optic nerve.
They tell us that the soul has no separate and distinct existence
apart from the body. Light, they claim, is but sensation ; and
sensation is the result of organization. When the organization
ceases, sensation will cease; and when sensation ceases, the
whole being ceases to be; for organization and sensation, say
they, compose the whole of man : there is no soul.

This method of argument is plausible. But the moment that
— "Slight is proved to exist 'without the use of either lights sensation,
or aiiy of the physical and material organs of vision, the whole
pyramid of their logic falls to the ground.

Thus it is that clairvoyance furnishes the most conclusive
answer to the materialists, and presents the most satisfactory
proof of the existence of the soul, separate from the body, re-
siding within it, generally employing its organs for the reception
of ideas, but at times acting independently of them, and obtaining
information without their aid. By clairvoyance, we have thus
shown the truth of the first proposition upon which Spiritualism
rests, — the existence of a dual nature in mail, a soul as well as a
body.

The second proposition, which lies at the basis of the new
philosophy, is the existence of a spiritual body, interfusing and
permeating the physical, material, or natural body.

If, in an obscure field, you should pick up the fragments of
the bones of an arm, the inference that there had once been a
full and complete organization, of which the fragments before
you were a part, would be logical and correct. The naturalist

I90

PLANCHBTTB.

is enabled, from the fragment of the skeleton of an extinct «ntc-
diluvial animal, to reconstruct the whole, and draw the portrait
of a creature which existed before the flood.

Let us apply this method to the subject under consideration.

The clairvoyant mind sees without the aid of light, or the
assistance of the external or physical eye.

The soul does not leave the body to place itself in direct
contact with the object seen; therefore the mind must have
some medium of sight. This medium of perception is neither
light nor the optic nerve. What, then, is it? It is not the odic*
force simply; for there must be some mevnis whereby the character
of the impression conveyed by the odic force is determined and
individualized^ — some agency whereby the impression of sight
is made distinguisnable from that of hearing, or the impression
made by an abstract idea. It is the peculiar function of an organ
to individualize and characterize the nature of an impression
received.

A simple object — for instance, a tree — makes upon the
physical body a multitude of impressions; and it is the various
organs of the body which individualize these impressions. The
impression which the size, form, and color of the tree makes is
individualized and characterized by the organs of sight. The
impressions which its hardness and impenetrability make are
individualized and characterized by the sense of touch. If it
were not for this, the mind would receive a mass of confused
impressions, without possessing any means to analyze, arrange,
or distinguish them. As a prism separates and individualizes
the various colors which compose a ray of sunlight, so the senses
separate and individualize the combined impressions which an
object makes upon the physical organism, and present them in
an orderly and defined spectrum to the mind.

* This word odic is derived from the Greek 6d6f , a way or passage. Reichenbach
gave the name od to what he conceived to be the force producing the phenomena of
mesmerism, and developed by various agencies, as by magnets, heat, light, chemical <w
vital action. The terms odyle^ or the odyllic or odic force, were thought preferable by
his English disciples.

nature's guarantee. 191

If the reader has followed with close attention our train of
reflection, he will be prepared for the conclusion at which we
have arrived, to wit : If the mind sees without the aid of light or
the assistance of the optic nerve, it must have some other medium
by which the simple impression of sight can be individualized,
and presented separate and distinct from all other impressions ;
or, in other words, there must be a spiritual organ of sighl,
distinct and separate from the physical organ of sight.

The remainder of our task is now simple and easy; for if
there is a spiritual organ of sight, there must also be a spiritual
organ for the individualization of all the other impressions. In
nature, each part is adapted to all the other parts, and the exist-
ence of one part presupposes the existence of all the other parts.
If there is a spiritual organ of sight, there must also be a
complete spiritual organization or body, interfused with and
penneating the physical body.

Nature, our wise and powerful mother, fore-adapts every
thing for the conditions amid which she intends it shall live.
How shall we escape the conclusion, that by adapting the soul
to another state of being, and endowing it for that purpose with
the power to exist, act, think, see, and hear, without the aid of
the body, and separated from it. Nature has given us her Solemn
and sacred guarantee that lue shall live hereafter ? To arrive at
any other conclusion, is to charge Nature with the weakness of
creating that which is useless, and God of the folly of adapting
man to a sphere of existence which he does not intend him to
enjoy.

All the arguments which have ever been made against the
immortality of the soul are based upon the idea, that the soul
has no identity of being separate from the body. From which
premise the conclusion is correctly drawn, that the soul and body,
being one in substance, must perish together. But clairvoyance
demonstrates to us that this premise is /alse, and teaches us that
the soul and the body are not one in substance; but, on the
contrary, that the former can think, act, see, and hear without
the aid of the latter, and independent of all its organs. It is

192

PLANCHETTK.

thus that clairvoyance, with a mighty hand, crushes to powder
the labored logic of the materialists, and places the belief in our
immortal nature upon a firm and scientific basis.

But again, clairvoyance, by demonstrating the truthful char-
acter of the teachings of intuition^ has afforded conclusive proof'
of a higher sphere of existence. God has given man two methods
of attaining a knowledge of truth, — intuition and reason. The
one is intended to prove the correctness of the other, thus
affording man the highest evidence of truth, by giving him the
power to arrive at the same results by two distinct and totally
diverse mental operations. What intuition and reason both
afiirm to be true, no man need doubt.

It is true that neither is infallible ; and he who expects to find
any human faculty infallible in its nature, only betrays his own
ignorance of the laws of mind and matter. Nevertheless, intui-
tion is a faculty of the soul, just as reliable as that of reason, and
the teachings of the one may be reposed upon with as much con-
fidence as those of the other. Clairvoyance has demonstrated
beyond all^avil^he truthful character of intuition.

What does intuition say in regard to the immortal nature of
the soul?

There is not a clairvoyant in the world, no matter what may
be his normal belief, who does not affirm the existence of the
soul after death has destroyed the clay-built palace wherein it
dwells during its brief residence upon earth.

Many philosophers have puzzled themselves about the theory
of '•^innate ideas." And the belief in our immortality has been
classed as an " innate idea." But the philosophers may learn a
lesson from clairvoyance. It is no " innate idea," but only the
divine voice of intuition, which, deep within each man's soul,
proclaims a life to come.

We must look to intuition for the true cause of that faith in a
future beyond the grave, which has prevailed in all nations and
all ages.

Clairvoyance, then, in demonstrating the truthfulness of in-
tuition, has also demonstrated the immortality of the soul.

SCIENTIFIC PROOF.

We have now arrived at the last of the propositions which is
to * be considered : the proof which clairvoyance affords of the
powet^ of spirits who have left the earth-form to communicate
with those who remain behind.
As a matter of course, this portion of the argument, as well
» as the former, is addressed only to such as believe in the phe-
nomena of clairvoyance. To those who are yet so far behind the
great age in which they live as to doubt or sneer at magnetism
and psychological science, all that has been said or will be said
by the writer can be of no use. Such persons have yet to learn
the a be oi that great science which lies at the basis of all others,
and is the most important of them all.

In order to make it plain that clairvoyance does afford scien-
tific and conclusive proof of the power of spirits to communicate
with us, it will be necessary to refer to some of the familiar and
ordinary phenomena of animal magnetism- Those phenomena
may be divided into three classes : —

I. Profound abstraction, magnetic sleep, and insensibility to
all external influences. 2. Sympathetic clairvoyance. 3. Inde-
pendent clairvoyance.

Attention is more particularly requested to the second class ;
namely, sympathetic clairvoyance. The subject, while in this
t state, is almost entirely under the control of the operator. No
\ \ vocalization of the will of the politive operator is required to
I I induce obedience in the negative subject. The simple concen-
\ ' tration of the unspoken will is all that is required to direct and
^ /control the subject. So great is the sympathy induced between
jthe two, that the will of the one acts freely upon the muscular
^ ; system of the other, and compels him to rise up, sit down, walk,
i\ ; stand, or talk, according to the volition of the operator. The
nervous systems of the two are united by a constant interchange
of the odic fluids. The result of this intimate union and sympa-
thy between the operator and the subject is, that the thoughts
of the one are known to the other. An idea evolved in the mind
of the operator, though unspoken^ immediately becomes present
in the mind of the subject. But you will remember that the will

194

PLANCHETTE.

of the operator also has control of the muscular system of the
«ubject. Hence, no sooner is the idea of the operator present in
the mind of the subject, should the operator will that idea^^to be
spoken by the subject, than the subject is compelled to speak it.
In other words, the operator, for the expression of b*< own silent
thoughts, can use the vocal organs of the subject.

Example. — A, in the presence of C, magnetizes B, and
throws him into the sympathetic clairvoyant state. This being
done, A silently thinks in his own mind these words : '* Good-
evening, friend C." Now^ by virtue of the sympathy established
between the operator A and the subject B, those words are im-
mediately impressed upon the mind of B, and become present
there. A now silently wills B to speak those words, which B is
compelled to do ; and so he turns to C, and says, ** Good-evening,
friend C." Thus you perceive A, instead of using his own organs
of speech, has employed those of B. In other words, A has been
speaking to C through a medium. This is an experiment which
we have repeatedly performed with success.

It will be observed that the body or physical organism of the
operator was not employed in the above experiment. The operator
used two things only : first, his will ; second, an odic force, which
was controlled and directed by his will, and made the agent for
the transmission of his thoughts and commands to the subject.

It is evident, therefore, that though the operator be deprived
of his body^ he will not lose the power to control and speak
through B, provided he yet retain the power of volition and the
command of the odic force.

It needs no argument to show that the escape of the soul from
the body will not deprive the soul of the power of volition. The
will is an essential attribute of the soul. Without volition, a soul
would not be a soul ; and nothing short of a total annihilation
of the soul can destroy its volition. The whole is equal to the
sum of its parts. If the whole is immortal, all the parts must
be immortal. Hence, we see that the immortality of the will is
just as certain as the immortality of the soul.

But will the disembodied volition still retain command of the

MATERIALISM TESTED.

195

odic force ? There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body. This spiritual body is very rare and refined in its nature,
but is yet less refined than the soul enshrined within it. The
soul, therefore, needs some agent by which it can put itself in
connection with that spiritual body. The soul cannot come in
direct contact with that body : it requires an agent which may
transmit its commands to the various parts and members of the
same.

What Nature requires, Nature supplies; and such an agent
exists. The agent which serves to put the soul in connection
with its new spiritual organization is an etherealization of what
we term the odic force or vital fluid. It has been termed spirit-
ual magnetism, in contradistinction to animal magnetism.
Hence, we have surviving the destruction of the human form the
only two conditions needed to enable A to control and speak
through B.

This, then, is the true philosophy of the method by which
spirits speak through media. It is sympathetic clairvoyance in
both cases. In the one case, the operator is a spirit in the form ;
in the otheV case, the operator is a spirit <7«/of the form. In both
cases the subject is the same. In the former case, the spirit in
the form uses his will, and the odic force evolved from his
physical organism. In the latter case, the spirit out of the form
uses his will, and the odic force flowing from his spiritual
organism. The analogy between the two is perfect, and the
means used are the same ; and this view being true, it antici-
pates and answers all the objections to the spiritual hypothesis
which we present in the chapter which follows.

We have offered some positive physical reasons for our rejec-
tion of the theories of the physiological materialists of our day.
Let us give a little space to a metaphysical analysis of their
arguments. ** Moleschott, Vogt, Buchner, Wiener, and others,"
says Professor Reubelt, ** maintain the following propositions:
It is not the mind that thinks : thoughts are the secretions of the
phosphoric brain. There is no liberty of the will, but a man is
what he eats; there is no immortality, but a resurrection, of the

196

PLANCHETTE.

body when it is used for the manuring of the fields ; there is no
personal God, who would be as much as a gaseous, vertebrated
animal ; but the universal law of causation is God. There is no
a priori knowledge. There is no knowledge without sensual im-
pressions, and no such impressions without a material object.
The human mind is no spontaneous and productive, but only a
receptive and digestive, organ."

Of this coarse materialism. Professor Gustave Franck, of Vi-
enna, lately said, in his inaugural address, ''Scientific criticism
has first to take in hand the principle of materialism ; and that is,
all is matter, or there is nothing but matter. But this leading
idea is not met with in matter. Materialisni is thus based on an
immaterial principle, which cannot be proved from matter, and
which thus contradicts itself. If materialism could account for
every thing else in the universe, it could not account for its own
first principle, and thus rests on the belief of a dogma or a prej-
udice.

*' If all is matter, thought is likewise a product of matter, an
accidental conglomeration, as Vogt says, of atoms in the brain.
Each sphere of thought is, therefore, an accidental phenomenon ;
each lacks the character of logical necessity. If two men think
the same thoughts, it must be owing to the accidental sameness
of the substance of their brains. Universal and necessary truths,
that is, truths which each and every one has, by necessity, to
recognize, there cannot be.

*' But if this is so, what right has the materialist to proclaim
his idea of the world as the only true one, and what interest
prompts him to attack opposite views ? If he is consistent, he
cannot do any thing else than complain bitterly of fate or acci-
dent, by which, in the brains of others, atoms conglomerate in a
manner so vastly different from that in his own.

"Now what is the position of materialism when tested by
mathematics? Are its propositions and axioms universal and
necessarily true, or are they accidental ? To admit the first part
of this question involves a denial of the very first principle of
materialism ; and to assume the second is absurd.

MATEllIALISM. CONTRADICTS ITSELF.

197

** Philosophically neither proved, nor capable of being proved,
and perfectly unable to account for the most common pheno-
mena, modern materialism has sought its main support in
natural science. The materialist reasons thus : —

" * The most minute and thorough examination and observa-
tion of nature has not yet been able to discover a. spirit,* and
there is consequently no spirit.'

" But with the same right a man may say, I have never seen
music with my eyes ; and there is, therefore, no music. All that
natural science can do is to confine itself to a relative negation,
and to say, * Wit A the means at my command^ I cannot discover a
spirit* As soon a$ it oversteps this limit, and makes its nega-
tion absolute, it is pretentious: it has left its own legitimate
sphere, and enters another of which it knows nothing, and of
which it has, therefore, nothing to say.

" Materialism is atomistic : it accounts for the universe and all
the phenomena taking place therein, by assuming the existence
of eternal infinitesimal bodies that are endued with force. But
as these atoms cannot be perceived by the senses, materialism,
to be consistent, has nothing, can have nothing, to do with them.
Again the forces of cohesion and expansion, supposed to inhere
in the atoms, cannot possibly produce any connection conform-
able to design ; and the materialistic philosopher must, therefore,
deny the existence of any thing of the kind in organisms.

** As these atoms are entirely destitute of intelligence, the ori-
gin of a self-conscious intelligence and the identity of this self-
consciousness during the whole life, amid the constant changes
of matter, cannot be accounted for on materialistic principles ;
and the materialist has to doubt his own self-consciousness in
order to be consistent.

" But as thinking, so is volition, a purely physical mechanism ;
and there is, therefore, no freedom of will, but every apparently
free act is the necessary result of a chain of mechanically act-

* As &r as the faculties of man are capable of discovering a spirit, by sight, touch,
speech, and the joint efforts of the reason and the senses, modern Spiritualism claims
that this has been done, although no chemical test may yet have been found.

PLANCHETTE.

ing causes : there is no moral self-determination. Materialism
has, consequently, no morality; but leads consistently to the
doing away with all moral and human order.

** Where there is no room for morality, there is of course none
for religion. Thus materialism is everywhere a sad negation of
every thing ideal ; yea, a mere negation itself, a heap of ruins."

In dismissing the materialism of Moleschott, Biichner, Mauds-
ley, and the rest, we are happy to quote Professor Tyndall, who,
though he has shown, like some other men of high scientific cul-
ture, a lack of courtesy, if not of courage, in dealing with the
spiritual phenomena, discourses well in regard to the unphilo-
sophical attitude of the German Sadducees. Speaking of the con-
nection between physical and mental processes, he says, ** Were
our minds and senses so ^panded, strengthened, and illumi-
nated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the
brain ; were we capable of following all their motions, all their
groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and
were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of
thought and feeling, — we should be as far as ever from the
solution of the problem, * How are these physical processes con-
nected with the facts of consciousness?' The chasm between
the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually
impassable. Let the consciousness of love, for examplcj be
associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of
the brain ; and the consciousness of hate with a left-hand spiral
motion. We should then know when we love that the motion is
in one direction, and when we hate that the motion is in the
other; but the *why?' would still remain unanswered. In
affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that
thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of
the brain, I think the position of the materialist is stated as far
as that position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be
able finally to maintain this position against all attacks ; but I
do not think, as the human mind is at present constituted, that
he can pass beyond it. . . .

The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insol-

THE MISSING LINK.

199

uble in its modern form as it was in the pre- scientific ages.
Phosphorus is known to enter into the composition of the human
brain ; and a courageous writer has exclaimed, in his trenchant
Gen#an, * OJine Phosphor heine Gedanke.^ * That may or may
not be the case ; but even if we knew it to be the case, the knowl-
edge would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone,
here assigned to the materialist, he is equally helpless. If you
ask him whence is this * matter ' of which we have been dis-
coursing, who or what divided it into molecules, who or what
impressed upon them this necessity of running into organic
forms, he has no answer. . . . Science, also, is mute in reply to
these questions."

Long before these remarks were made, in some comments
upon the physiological writings of Mr. Bain, Mr. James Marti-
neau expressed similar ideas, as follows : " If modern cerebral
researches were ever so successful ; if we could turn the exterior
of a man's body into a transparent case, and compel powerful
magnifiers to lay bare to us all that happens in his nerves and •
brain, — what we should see would not be sensation, thought,
affection, but some form of movement or other visible change,
which would equally show itself to any being with observing
eyesight, however incapable of the corresponding inner emotion.
Facts thus legible from a position foreign to the human con-
sciousness are not mental facts, are not moral facts, and have
no place in the interior of a science which professes to treat of
these, and reduce them to their laws."

"Whatever force," says Mr. Shorter, "there may be in the
argument from metaphysics for the soul's immortality is unaf-
fected by Spiritualism, save in the way of confirmation to its '
conclusion. Spiritualism converts what before was but proba-
bility into certitude; it su pplies the missin;^ link i it makes good I
that embarrassing del^CC 111 the evidence which has perplexed so \
many, leading them to question or reject the belief in immortality ,

* No thought without phosphorus; an assertion which the &cts of somnambu-
lism and Spiritualism would seem to render rather questionable, to say the least

200

PLANCHETTE.

as not adequately sustained. Let, then, the metaphysician mar-
shal all his forces, and do what service he may in tife cause of
this great truth : I would only say, in the language of an elder
Spiritualist, * Yet show T ynu a more excellent way.' " •

To many minds, familiar with the facts of Spiritualism, all argu-
ments in proof of the soul's immortality will seem as superfluous
as it^ould be to argue to a photographer that pictures can be
made by the aid of light. To them the question is no longer an
open one; for to them the fact of spiritual existence has been
proved, as far as it can be to our limited human faculties.
Enough has been given to satisfy them that to give more might
be to cross some of the purposes of this disciplinary mundane
existence. And so they wait serenely for the dawn of the great
morning.

*• Soon the whole,

Like a parched scroll,
Shall before our amazM sight unroll ;

And, without a screen.

At one burst be seen
The presence wherein we have ever been.**

CHAPTER IX.

MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA.

' Oh, hearts that never cease to yearn I

Oh, brimming tears that ne'er are dried 1
The dead, though they depart, return.
As if they had not diedj

The livbg are the only dead ;

The dead live — never more to die ;
And often when we mourn them fled.

They never were so nigh 1 "

'ELL authenticated accounts of apparitions of the departed

~ ^ may be found in Mr. Owen's " Footfalls on the Boundary
of Another World," and in Mr. Howitt's comprehensive " His-
tory of the Supernatural."

"The department of apparitions alone," says Mr. Howitt, "is
a most voluminous one, and that on evidence that has resisted
all efforts to dislodge it. Amongst those of recent times is that
which warned Lord Lyttleton, in a dreartl, of the day and hour
of his death; the truth of which has been assailed in vain.
Equally well attested is that which appeared to Dr. Scott in
Broad Street, London, and sent him to discover the title-deeds
of a gentleman in Somersetshire, who would otherwise have
lost his estate in a lawsuit with two cousins. That which drove
Lady Penniman and her family out of a house in Lisle at the
commencement of the French Revolution, is well known and
authenticated. That which announced to Sir Charles Lee's
daughter at Waltham in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford,
her death that day at twelve o'clock, and which took place then,
is related by a bishop of Gloucester. That of Dorothy Dingle,

202

PLANCHETTE.

related by the Rev. Mr. Ruddle, a clergyman of Launceston in
Cornwall, occurring in 1665, is well known. Still more cele-
brated is that of Lord Tyrone to Lady Beresford, to warn her
against a most miserable marriage, and to predict the marriage
of his (Lord Tyrone's) daughter with Lady Beresford's son, and
her own death at the age of forty-seven. In proof of the reality
of this ghostly visit, the spirit took hold of her ladyship's wrist,
which became marked indelibly, so that she always wore a black
ribbon over it. The apparition to Dr. Donne of his living wife,
when he was in Paris, representing the death of his child, is
related by Dr. Donne himself; that of the father of the Duke
of Buckingham, warning his son of his approaching fate, is
well attested. Baxter relafes several cases as communicated to
him at first hand. But of all cases, ancient and modern, none
are better authenticated than that of Captain WheatcrOffc, who
fell at the storming of Lucknow in 1857."

In this last case, the apparition presented itself to two differ-
ent ladies, one of them the wife of Captain Wheatcroft. Nor
could it be said that the recital of one lady caused the apparition
of the same figure to the other. Mrs. Wheatcroft was at the

time at Cambridge, and Mrs. N in London ; and it was not

till weeks after the occurrence that either knew what the other
had seen. Those who would explain the whole on the principle
of chance coincidence, have a treble event to take into account :

the apparition to Mrs. N , that to Mrs. Wheatcroft, and the

actual time of Captain Wheatcroft's death, each tallying exactly
with the other.

I Examples of apparitions at the moment of death might be
I multiplied without number. In the case of the Wynyard
1 apparition, which took place Oct. 15, 1785, at Sydney, in the
island of Cape Breton, off Nova Scotia, Sir John Sherbrooke
and General George Wynyard, then young men, both witnessed
j it at the same moment. " I have heard," said Sherbrooke, ** of
! a man being pale as death ; but I never saw a living face as-
sume the appearance of a corpse, except Wynyard's at that
moment." Both remained silently gazing on the figure as it

APPARITIONS. 203

passed slowly through the room, and entered the bed-chamber,
casting on young Wynyard a look of melancholy affection.
The oppression of its presence was no sooner removed, than
Wynyard, grasping his friend's arm, exclaimed, ** Great God 1 •
my brother I "

They instantly proceeded to the bedroom, searched, but found
it untenanted. The case was made known to their brother-
officers. With the utmost anxiety they waited for letters from
England. At length came a letter to Sherbrooke, begging him
to break to Wynyard the news of the death of his favorite
brother, who had expired on the. 15th of October, and at the
same hour at which the friends saw the apparition.

Recently, while in England, Mr. Owen took pains to authen-
ticate this narrative. " It will not, I think, be questioned," he
writes, " that this evidence is as direct and satisfactory as can
well be, short of a record left in writing by one or other of the
seers, — which it does not appear is to be found. A brother-
officer, the first who entered the room after the apparition had
been seen, testifies in writing to the main facts. Sir John Sher-
brooke himself, when forty years had passed by, repeats to a
brother-officer his unaltered conviction that it was the spirit of
his friend's brother that appeared to them in the barracks at
Sydney, and that that friend was as fully convinced of the fact
as himself."

Colonel Swift, late keeper of the crown jewels in the Tower,
London, communicates to "Notes and Queries'* of Sept. 8,
i860, an account of a singular apparition witnessed by himself
and family in October, 1817, in his room in that ancient fortress,
famous for so many royal murders and executions; and adds,
that, soon afterwards, a sentinel on duty before the door of the
iewel-office was so frightened by an apparition, that he died.

The Cambridge Association for Spiritual Inquiry, familiarly
called the Ghost Club, have stated that their carefully conducted
researches on -the subject of apparitions have led them to re-
gard such appearances as a settled fact. A member of this
association informed Mr. Owen that he had collected two thou-
sand cases of apparitions.

PLANCHETTE.

Dr. Garth Wilkinson, in his "Life of Swedenborg," says
truly, "The lowest experience of all time is rife in spiritual
intercourse already; man believes it in his fears and hopes,
* even when his education is against it; almost every family has
its legends; and nothing but the wanting courage to divulge
them keeps back this supernaturalism from forming a library
of itself." This was also the candid confession of Kant.

In " Recollections, Political, &c., of the Last Half Century,"
by the Rev. J. Richardson (London, 1856), there is a circum-
stantial account of the appearance of Mr. John Palmer (an actor,
who died suddenly on the stage at Liverpool on the 2d of August,
1798), on the night of his death, to a person in London, named
Tucker. "The fact of his absence from London was known to
Tucker, but he was not aware about his arrangement for his
return. On the night just mentioned, Tucker had retired at an
earlier hour than usual ; but the company in the drawing-room
was numerous, and the sound of their merriment prevented him
from falling asleep. He was in a state of morbid drowsiness
produced by weariness, but continually interrupted by noise.
As he described the scene, he was sitting half upright in his
bed, when he saw the figure of a man coming from the passage
which led from the door of the house to the hall. The figure
paused in its transit for a moment at the foot of the couch, and
looked him full in the face. There was nothing spectral, or like
the inhabitant of the world of spirits, in the countenance or
outline of the figure, which passed on, and apparently went
up the staircase. Tucker felt no alarm, whatever: he recog-
nized in the figure the features, gait, dress, and general appear-
ance of John Palmer, who, he supposed, had returned from
Liverpool, and, having the entrie of the house, had, as usual,
availed himself of his latch-key. . . . Next morning, in the
course of some casual conversation, he informed Mrs. Vernon
thftt he had seen Mr. Palmer pass through the hall, and ex-
prt ttsed a hope that his trip to Liverpool had agreed with his
h(»l^Uh. The lady stared at him incredulously; said he must
h«v^ been dreaming or drinking or out of his senses, as no Mr.

APPARITIONS AND HAUNTINGS.

205

Palmer had joined the festivities in the drawing-room. His
delusion, if delusion it were, was made a source of mirth to
the people who called in the course of the day. He, however,
persisted in his assertion of having seen Mr. Palmer ; and on the '
arrival of the post from Liverpool on the day after he had first
made it, laughter was turned into mourning, and most of the
guests were inclined to think there was more in it than they
were willing to confess.

"It should be added, that this * Tucker 'was a sort of hall-
porter in Mrs. Vernon's house, and slept on a couch in the hall ;
and * those who entered the house, and were about to go up
stairs, had to pass by the aforesaid couch.'

" It is very curious, also, that Palmer dropped down dead on the
stage, while performing the part of the * Stranger* in Kotzebue's
well-known play of that name, and immediately after uttering
these memorable words, * There is another and a better world! *
A benefit was got up in Liverpool for his children, which pro-
duced £400."

The positive statements of hauntings are so numerous, that,
to deny them, or set them down as delusion, requires a skep-
ticism akin to credulity. It turns out, on a thorough re-
examination by Mr. Shorter of the celebrated " Cock-Lane
ghost-story," for his belief in which Dr. Johnson has been so
repeatedly ridiculed, that the phenomena of that case were in
accordance with laws now familiar. The girl, a child of thir-
teen, was simply a medium. To learn how the raps were made,
she was tried in all sorts of ways, and with tied-up hands and
feet, from the supposition that she made the noises herself ; but
in vain. The noises went on, and that in different rooms, and
even different houses. Floors and wainscots were pulled up;
but no trick was discovered, though the search was made under
the supervision of Di*. Johnson, Bishop Douglas, James Penn,
and Stephen Aldrich. "That such a deception," says Howitt,
"fihould be carried on by a family on which it only brought
persecution, the pillory, and ruin, was too absurd for the
belief of any except the so-called incredulous."

2o6

PLANCHETTE.

Beaumont, in his "Gleanings of Antiquities," published in
1724, mentions the rafping phenomena, and sayis, "There is a
house in London, in which, for three years last past, have been
heard, and still are heard, almost continual knockings against
the wainscot overhead, and sometimes a noise like telling
money, and of men sawing, to the great disturbance of the
inhabitants; and often lights have been seen, like flashes of
lightning; and the person who rents this house has told me
that when she has removed eighteen miles from London,
the knockings have followed her."

Glanville says that there were knockings, and that a hand
was seen at old Gast*s House in Little Burton in 1677. The
knockings were on a bed's head, and the hand was seen holding
a hammer, which made the strokes. Our times do not have the
exclusive experience even of knockings. Bishop Heber says
that the evidences of such things, which Glanville gives, are
more easily ridiculed than disproved.

The cases on record of direct spirit-'writing^ when no medium
was near enough to co-operate in any known way, are very
numerous.* A work by Baron L. De Guldenstubb^, a Swedish
nobleman, resident in Paris, entitled "La R^alit^ des Esprits,'*
and published a few years since, contains numerous facsimiles
of writings made on paper by some invisible and intelligent
force. The names of ten distinguished persons who witnessed
the phenomenon are given. The Baron is a gentleman well
known to personal friends of our own ; and his character gives
all possible weight to his testimony.

"The absurd fear of demons," he says, "has incapacitated
our orthodox priests and theologians from combating the mate-
rialists and the Sadducees with effectual experimental weapons.
This demonophobia has unfortunately grown to be a veritable
dcmonolatry. The priests having fear of demons, and, conse-
quently, not wishing to occupy themselves with these spiritual

* At the house of Mr. Daniel Farrar in Boston, some years since, we were present
at some very curious experiments of this sort. The late Charles Colchester was the
medium.

SURPRISING OCCURRENCES.

307

phenomena, have unwittingly formed a pact^with the devil, hy
virtue of which the reign of incredulity and materialism, that
reign of the demon par excellence, continues to subsist in all its
dclaL . . .

" The two fundamental ideas of Spiritualism — namely, that of
the i pimortality b lit he soi^ l, and that of the r^alify of ^the j^nvjaj^^
W yprlH whirh reveals and manifests itself in different ways in
our terrestrial world — are but the necessary corollary of the
idea of God or the Absolute, and vice-versd. We may even
assume that the idea of the immortality of the soul, and of its
relations to the supernatural world, is more intimate and primi-
tive than that of God, Creator and Supreme Author of the
universe. . . .

"The Bible does not formally teach the idea of the immor-
tality of the soul, graven by the Eternal himself on the heart of
man, but it supposes it everywhere. (Job xix. 26, 27; Num.
xxiii. 10; Isa. xxvi. 19.) . . . The practice of necromancy,
according to Samuel (i Sam. xxviii. 3-25), and according to
Deuteronomy (xiii. and xviii.), necessarily presupposes the doc-
trine of the immortality of the soul ; and so with the visions and
apparitions, of which the Bible is full."

Dr. Henry More gives a remarkable story touching the stirs
made by a demon in the family of one Gilbert Campbel, by
profession a weaver, in the old parish of Glenluce in Galloway,
Scotland, in November, 1654. Among other phenomena in this
case, we read that " presently there appeared a naked hand and
arm from the elbow down, beating upon the floor till the house
did shake again."

Certain surprising occurrences, which took place in 1806 at
Slawensick Castle, Silesia, are thoroughly well authenticated.
Councillor Hahn, in the service of Prince Hohenlohe, had gone
to Slawensick, and with an old friend, a military officer named
Kern, had taken up his abode in the castle. ** Hahn, during his
collegiate life, had been much given to philosophy; had listened
to Fichte, and earnestly studied the writings of Kant. The
result of his reflections, at this time, was a pure materialism."

2o8

PLANCHETTE.

He had been reading aloud to his friends the works of Schiller,
when the reading was interrupted by a small shower of lime
which fell around them : this was followed by larger pieces ; but
they searched in vain to discover any part of the walls or ceiling
from which it could have fallen. The next evening, instead of
the lime falling, as before, it was thrown, and several pieces
struck Hahn ; at the same time they heard many blows, some-
times below and sometimes over their heads, like the sound of
distant guns. On the following evening, a noise was added,
which resembled the faint and distant beating of a drum. On
going to bed, with a light burning, they heard what seemed like
a person walking about the room with slippers on, and a stick,
with which he struck the floor as he moved step by step. The
friends continued to laugh and jest at the oddness of these
circumstances, till they fell asleep; neither being in the least
inclined to attribute them to any supernatural cause. " But, on
the following evening, the affair became more inexplicable :
various articles in the room were thrown about, — knives, forks,
brushes, caps, slippers, padlocks, funnel, snuffers, soap, — every
thing, in short, that was movable; whilst lights darted from
corner to corner, and every thing was in confusion. At the same
time the lime fell, and the blows continued. Upon this, the two
friends called up the servant, Knittel, the castle-watch, and
whoever else was at hand, to be witnesses of these mysterious
operations. Frequently, before their eyes, the knives and snuf-
fers rose from the table and fell, after some minutes, to the
ground." So constant and varied were the annoyances, that
they resolved on removing to the rooms above. But this did
not mend the matter: "the thumping continued as before; and
not only so, but articles flew about the room which they were
quite sure they had left below." Kern saw a figure in the mirror
interposing, apparently, between the glass and himself ; the eyes
of the figure moving, and looking into his.

It is unnecessary to recount the means employed to trace out
these mysteries. Hahn and Kern, assisted by two Bavarian
olSoers, — Captain Cornet and Lieutenant Magerle, and all the

STONE-THROWING PHENOMENA. 2O9

aid thejr could assemble, — were wholly unsuccessful in obtain-
ing the slightest clew. And Hahn, from whose narrative this
account is taken, declares, "I have described these events
exactly as I saw them ; from beginning to end, I observed them
with the most entire self-possession. I had no fear, nor the
slightest tendency to it ; yet the whole thing remains to me
perfectly inexplicable."

Those who have read Mrs. Poole's "Englishwoman in Egypt,"
will recollect her curious account of the hauntings and appari-
tions in the house of her brother, Mr. Lane, at Cairo. The
account is fully confirmed by Mr. Bayle St. John. He relates
having seen a ghostly Sheik enter the house at noon, where he
himself lived ; having had the doors immediately closed, and the
visitor actively hunted up, but to no purpose. He relates also,
that, in Alexandria, cases of throwing of stones from the roofs
are of no unfrequent occurrence, where no one can discover the
perpetrators.

M. Joseph Bizouard, in a work published in Paris, under the
title of "Des Rapports de V Homme avec le D^mon," relates
some details, given by GSrres, of strange events at Miinchshofe,
situated a league from Voitsberg, and three leagues from Gratz.
They occurred in the house of a Herr Obergemeiner, and were
observed and recorded by Dr. J. H. Aschauer, his father-in-law,
a very learned physician and professor of mathematics at Gratz.
They commenced in October, 1818, by the flinging of stones
against the windows on the ground-floor, in the afternoon and
evening. The noise generally ceased when they went to bed.
As nobody could discover the cause, towards the end of the
month, Obergemeiner, without saying any thing to his family,
engaged about thirty-six of the peasants of the environs, and
placed them in cordon all round the house well armed, and with
orders to allow no one to go in or out of the house. He then
took into the house with him Koppbauer and some others,
assembled all his people to see that none were missing, and
thoroughly examined every apartment, from the attics to the
cellar. It wa» about half-past four o'clock in the afternoon.
• '4

tio

PLANCHETTK.

The peasants formed their circle, and saw that no one was
concealed within it, nor was able to pop in or out ; notwithstand-
ing, the throwing of stones commenced against the windows of
the kitchen. Koppbauer, placed at one of them, endeavored to
ascertain their direction. Whilst Obergemeiner was in the
kitchen with the others, a great stone was launched against the
window where he stood, and broke many of the panes. . It was
previously thought that the stones were thrown from the interior ;
and it was in effect from that direction that thej now continued
to come till half-past six in the evening, when the whole ceased.
Every place in the house where a man could possibly conceal
himself was visited ; and the guard without continued its posi-
tion.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the stone-throwing re-com-
menced before more than sixty persons ; and they were convinced
that, issuing from beneath the benches of the kitchen, they
struck the windows in a manner inexplicable. Pieces of lime-
stone, weighing from a quarter of a pound to five pounds, were
seen flying in all directions against the windows; and imme-
diately afterwards all the utensils, spoons, pots, plates, full and
empty, were launched from the midst of the spectators against
the windows and the doors with a velocity inconceivable. Some
broke th^ glass, some remained sticking in the broken panes ;
and otherSj^only appearing to touch the glass, fell into the inte-
rior. The spectators, when struck by the stones, felt only a slight
blow. Whilst utensils were being carried from the kitchen, they
were forced from the hands of those who bore them, or they
w«re knocked over on the table on which they were placed.
The crucifix alone was respected : the lights burning before it
wen forcibly flung down. At the end of two hours, all the glass
in the kitchen and all the fragile objects were broken, even
those which they had carried away. A plate full of salad carried
up to the first floor, in the act of being carried down again, by
a servant, was snatched from her hands and flung into the ves-
tibule. The disorder ceased at eleven o'clock. We omit many
particulars which took place at this time.

STRANGE DOINGS.

211

M. Aschauer, having heard this strange news from his son-in-
law, desired to know when any thing further took place ; and,
being sent for, as he entered he saw his daughter, with the man
named Koppbauer, picking up the fragments of a pot, which had
been thrown on the floor just as he entered. Then, all j.t once,
a great ladle was launched from the shelf on which it lay, and,
with incredible velocity, against the head of Koppbauer, who,
instead of a severe contusion, only perceived a very light touch.
M. Aschauer saw nothing further till the next day; when, issu-
ing from the kitchen on account of the smoke, some stones were
thrown against the windows. This physician examined the
lightning-conductor, and every thing else, with an electrometer;
but neither he nor Obergemeiner, who had offered a reward of a
thousand francs to any one who could discover the cause, could
detect any thing. On the second day, about four o'clock in the
afternoon, Aschauer, troubled at these strange occurrences, was
standing at the end of the kitchen, having opposite to him a
shelf on which stood a large metal soup-tureen, when he saw the
tureen suddenly dart towards him in a nearly horizontal position,
and with surprising velocity, and pass so near his head that the
wind of it raised his hair; and the tureen then fell to the earth
with a great noise.

Curiosity caused people to hasten from all parts, who were
struck dumb with astonishment at these phenomena, and others
of a similar nature. Towards five o'clock came a stranger, who
pretended that a man must be concealed in the chimney. This
ridiculous explanation excited the anger of M. Aschauer ; and he
led him towards the door, whence nothing could be seen from
the chimney, and, pointing to a copper dish upon a shelf, he
said, ''What would you say, monsieur, if that dish should,
without any one touching it, be thrown to the other side of the
kitchen?'* Scarcely were the words uttered, when the dish, as
if it had heard them, " flew across. The stranger stood con-
founded.

We omit many particulars, because they are of the same kind.
A pail of water, weighing fifteen pounds, which had been set on

212

PLANCHETTE.

the floor, fell from the ceiling without any one being able to
conceive how it got there ; for there was nothing to hang it upon.
As thej were seated round the fire, a pot, which none of them
could touch, was suddenly turned over, and emptied itself little
by little, contrary to the law of such a fall. Then came egg-
shells flying from every corner, nobody being there to throw
them, and no one being able to imagine whence they came.
After the departure of M. Aschauer, the wheels of a mill, about
six minutes' walk from the house, stood still from time to time;
the miller was thrown out of his bed, the bed turned over, the
lights were extinguished, and various objects were thrown to
the ground.

After this, nothing more is said to have happened; at all
events, M. Obergemeiner, who did not love to speak of these
things, made no report of any. They made a great sensation,
however, amongst the government officials ; and the district of
Ober-Greiffenneck sent its report to the circle of Gratz. " Al-
though it is said that we exist no longer in the times of
ignorance, when phenomena which could not be comprehended
were attributed to demons, &c., it is remarkable that, at an
epoch in which civilization and the progress of the natural
sciences have put them to flight, we yet see extraordinary things
which the savans cannot explain." The report accords with the
recital of M. Aschauer, and a mention is made in it of an inquiry
by order of the magistrates, conducted by M. Gayer, with his
electric apparatus ; and the report concludes by recommending*
a further inquiry, ** as a natural solution can alone combat the
hypocrisy of some and the superstition of others."

We do not ask the reader to imagine the conclusion to which
the government came on this matter, for he never could divine
it. It was " that a man concealed in the tunnel of the chimney
was probably the cause " 1 These professors of natural science
were, however, charged to proceed, to a further inquiry ; but they
considered it beneath their dignity, and refused. Afterwards an
agent of the police visited the house; and G6rres says, that,
amongst the various causes that he imagined, the most amusing

brownson's reply to babinet.

213

was that M. Aschauer had only astonished the people by a series
of scientific tricks. Gorres, however, stating that his account is
literally found in a letter of M. Aschauer to a friend, dated Jan.
21, 1821, and in details communicated to himself, at a later
period, assures us that M. Aschauer was not only a man of the
profoundest science, but of the profoundest regard to truth, and
one who feared no ridicule in stating it, however strange it
might be. On this occasion, he asserted that no master of
legerdemain was capable of producing the things which he saw.
Neither was the force employed a mere scientific or physical
force: it was a force free and reasoning; and these effects were
the sport of a spirit or spirits, immaterial or invisible.

M. Babinet, in an essay in the " Revue des Deux Mondes,"
reasons, like Faraday, that these, and similar phenomena at-
tested by Spiritualists, are impossible, because they contradict
the law of gravitation. Dr. Brownson urges in reply, that when
he sees a fact of this kind, he does not pretend that it is in
accordance with the law of gravitation, but the essence of the
fact— that which constitutes its marvellousness — is precisely
that it is not. " Now, to deny the fact for that reason," he says,
** is to say that the law of gravitation cannot be overcome or
suspended, and precisely to beg the question. How," he asks,
" does M. Babinet know that there are not invisible powers who
can overcome this force as easily as we ourselves can do? The
fact of the rising of a table, or a man to the ceiling, is one that
is easily verified by the senses ; and, if attested by witnesses of
ordinary capacity and credibility, must be admitted. That it is
contrary to the law of gravitation, proves not that it is impossi-
ble, but that it is possible only preternaturally." In the words
of Mr. Mill, there must be an " adequate counteracting cause."

** Scientific men," says Mr. Shorter, ** should learn from expe-
rience to be cautious in affirming the limit of the possible. The
more completely they prove that the phenomena in question are
not due to, and are impossible by, any physical agency, the
more completely do they establish the necessary spiritual causa-
tion of such phenomena. » Those men of science who have

214

PLANCHETTK.

erected theories about the impossible, have not unfrequently
built a monument to their own folly and shame. The circula-
tion of the bloody the prevention of small-pox by vaccination,
the fall of meteorolites, the lighting of towns by gas, convey-
ance by steam, painless surgery, clairvoyance, — these, and
many other things now familiar to us, have, each in its turn,
been pronounced impossible by high authorities. One age
laughs at an idea; the next adopts it. The impossible of yester-
day is the familiar fact of to-day. In an age when steam is our
conductor, and electricity our messenger, and the sun our por-
trait-painter; when the every-day facts of life would have been
a fairy tale a hundred years ago; who, especially with the
knowledge that spiritual forces are working around and within
us, will have the presumption to affirm that it is impossible for
spiritual beings so to operate upon ourselves and surrounding
objects as to make their presence evident even to our senses?
Lord Bacon says, * We have set it down as a law to ourselves to
examine things to the bottom, and not to receive upon credit, or
reject upon improbabilities, until there hath passed a due exam-
ination.* "

■ The late Thomas Starr King was intuitively a Spiritualist.
** What more arrogant and presumptuous folly can there be," he
says, *' than that which a person exhibits, who makes his expe-
rience of nature the measure of possibilities of nature? Yet
this is what all of us do who object to the doctrine of the soul's
immortality, that we cannot conceive how it is released from its
fleshy bondage, nor what are the methods of its disembodied
life. If we should hear any man soberly affirm that he did not
believe that any process could go on in this universe, or any
thing be true, which baffled his powers of comprehension, we
should probably think that the application to him of Paul's
apostrophe to the Corinthian doubter involved no dangerous lack
of charity. It has pleased God to endow us with five senses,
through which we hold conversation with the created realm.
We do not know that five other media of communication might
not be opened that would make the physical universe seem as

THOMAS STARR KING'S REMARKS.

different and as much higher than it now does, as if we were
transported into another sphere. Who has told us that there
cannot be any other avenues between the soul and matter than
the touch, the taste, the ear, and the eye? Who has told us that
all which exists right about us is reported by the limited appara-
tus furnished to our nerves ? ...

" It has been truly said by another, that we should * easily
believe in a life to come, if this present life were the wonderful
thing to us which it ought to be.' Here is the point. Not that
there are startling difficulties in the way of conceiving a future
existence, but that we lose the fine sense and the nice relish of
the mystery and miracle that invest us here. There are a thou-
sand scientific facts that would seem as marvellous to a culti-
vated mind, if they had not been demonstrated and published
in veracious treatises, as the continued existence of the body.
What would Plato have said, could he have seen a man, without
using any flame in the experiment, cause fire to burst out of a
lump of ice ? Suppose that Newton had never heard of a load-
stone, what would he have thought, could he have seen an iron
weight, in defiance of the law of gravitation which he had just
demonstrated, spring from the floor to the wall ? Before seeing
the fact for the first time, would not the proposition have
seemed as surprising to him, and as difficult to be believed, as
the return of a dead man to life before his eyes, or the appear-
ance of a spirit? And after he had seen it, how could he explain
it? How can any man explain the phenomenon now?

" Is the statement that there is an enduring spirit within us,
entirely distinct from the corporeal organization, and which the
cessation of the heart liberates to a higher mode of existence,
any more startling than the statement that a drop of water,
which may tremble and glisten on the tip of the finger, seem-
ingly the most feeble thing in nature, from which the tiniest
flower gently nurses its strength while it hangs upon its leaf,
which a sunbeam may dissipate, contains within its tiny globe
electric energy enough to charge eighf hundred thousand Ley-
den jars, energy enough to split a cathedral as though it were a

ai6

PLANCHETTK.

toy? And so that, of every cup of water we drink, each atom is
a thunder storm ?

''Is the idea of spiritual communication and intercourse, by
methods far transcending our present powers of sight, speech,
and hearing, beset with more intrinsic difficulties than the idea
of conversing by a wire with a man in St. Louis, as quickly as
with a man by your side, or of making a thought girdle the
globe in a twinkling? And when we say that the spiritual "vyorld
may be all around us, though our senses take no impression of
it, what is there to embarrass the intellect in accepting it, when
we know that, within the vesture of the air which we cannot
grasp, there is the realm of light, the immense ocean of elec-
tricity, and the constant currents of magnetism, all of them
playing the most wonderful parts in the economy of the world,
each of them far more powerful than the ocean, the earth, and
the rocks, — neither of ihem at all comprehensible by our minds,
while the existence of two of them is not apprehensible by any
sense,"

" Sweep away the illusion of Time," says Carlyle, " compress
the threescore years into three minutes," and what are we our-
selves but ghosts? " Are we not sptrits, that are shaped into a
body, into an appearance? This is no metaphor:" it is a simple
scientific fact. We start out of Nothingness, take figure, and
are Apparitions : round us, as round the veriest spectre, is Eter-
nity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. . . .

**0 Heaven 1 it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we
ij^ot only carry, each a future Ghost within him, but are, in very
I deed, Ghosts I These Limbs, whence had we them ; this stormy
Force ; this life-blood with its burning Passion ? They are
dust and shadow ; a Shadow-system gathered round our Me ;
wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine Essence
is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his strong war-
horse, fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his arm
and heart : but warrior and war-horse are a vision r a revealed
Force^ nothing more. Stately they tread the earth, as if it were
a firm substance: fool! the Earth is but a film; it cracks in

CARLYLE ON SPIRITS.

217

twain, and warrior and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sound-
ing. Plummet's? Fantasy herself will not follow them. A
little while ago they were not ; a little while and they are not,
their very ashes are not.

** So it has been from the beginning; so will it be to the end.
Generation after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body ;
and forth issuing from Cimmerian iNight, on Heaven's mission
APPEARS. What Force and Fire is in each he expends : one
grinding in the mill of Industry ; one, hunter-like, climbing the
giddy Alpine heights of Science ; one madly dashed in pieces
on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow: and then the
Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly Vesture falls away, and
soon, even to Sense, becomes a vanished Shadow. Thus, like
wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does
this mysterious Mankind thunder and flame, in long-drawn,
quick-succeeding grandeur, through the unknown Deep. . . .
Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our
passage : can the Earthy which is but dead and a vision, resist
Spirits which have reality and are alive ? On the hardest ada-
mant some foot-print of us is stamped. in; the last Rear of the
host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence? — O
Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only
that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God."

Carlyle reveals to us the spiritual side of man whilst in this
world and fettered to his clog of flesh. The great facts of
Spiritualism reveal man to us as he is when he emerges into " a
purer ether, a diviner air," with his individualism unimpaired,
and all that he has gained of good, through his affections and
his understanding in this life, left whole as the vantage-ground
of future progress.

CHAPTER X.

THEORIES IN REGARD TO THE PHENOMENA.

<* It is only since the middle of the eighteenth century that Spiritualism began to cease
to be the prevalent faith of Christendom ; and parallel with this decline has been the
denial of all revelation and the spread of atheistical philosophy. God, however, has not
left himself without a witness ; and in our day, when Sadduceeism most abounds, evi-
dences of a spiritual world have been multitudinous." — Thomas Shorter.

TT 7E have seen what the first theories were in explanation of

the phenomena of 1848. It was soon found that these
theories were insufficient. Like Faraday's notion of an uncon-
scious exercise of muscular force, they did not cover the new
facts as they came up and multiplied.

So long as the manifestations were confined to raps and table-
tippings, it was surmised that they might proceed in some
mysterious way from animal electricity, put in operation by the
unconscious will of the medium or of other persons present.

The late Dr. E. C. Rogers, a gentleman personally well known
to us at the time the Rochester phenomena began to excite pub-
lic attention, was the author of a work bearing the following
title: "Philosophy of Mysterious Agents, Human and Mundane,
or the Dynamic Laws and Relations of Man." His theory is
that the whole body of phenomena, physical and mental, are
referable to cerebral or mental action, through the medium of
**a physical force associated with the human organism; and,
under peculiar conditions, this physical force is made to emanate
from that organism with a most terrible energy, and without
any necessary conjunction with either spiritual or psychological
agencj'." This agent may be the od, or odic force^ of Reichen-
bach. It is not under the general control of the will, but is the

DR. ROGERS'S THEORY.

219

mere agent of the unconscious organs, playing its part automat-
ically, as the brain is aflfected. \

The material agent is thus put in operation by the peculiar
changes that take place in the cerebral organs. That every
thought, emotion, or passion is accompanied with a change of
the motion of the brain, is assumed as one of the undisputed
facts in physiology. It is the prerogative of every man's mind
or spirit to control the motions, and, consequently, the changes
of his brain, within prescribed limits. But, in certain condi-
tions of the latter, such as mesmeric trance, catalepsy, sleep, cere-
bral inflammation, passiveness of mind and will, and many
others, the man's own personality is suspended in its prerogative
action. The predominant influence upon it, then, becomes
material or sensuous; and here, according to Dr. Rogers, the
reflex action of another's brain will readily take effect. Anoth-
er's wish or request will act like a law ; and a fictitious person-
ality may be induced in the brain, and represented independently
of the conscious personality, reason, and will of the individual..
It therefore follows that the specific action of one person's
brain may be unconsciously propagated to another's brain, and
there be exactly represented in a second cerebral action. This
may propagate itself to the automatic centres in the spinal
axis, and thus the involuntary play of the muscles may pro-
duce the rappings, movements of furniture, and the other phe-
nomena.

In view of the many evidences of unconscious cerebral ac-
tion. Dr. Roger's regards it as precipitate to attribute to the
influence of disembodied spirits that which may lie within the
sphere of the human organization and of mundane agencies.
He then proceeds to show how the human organism may be
influenced by drugs, so as to alter its conditions; and argues
that, inasmuch as the agent, the substance on which it acts, and
the new condition, are purely physical, the results must be
physical also. It follows, therefore, that visions, somnambulism,
ecstasy, which are pathematically produced, and also produced
by the influence of drugs upon the organism, are the results of

220

PLANCHETTK.

the material conditions of that organism, and do not require the
spiritual hypothesis for their explanation.

Dr. Rogers's conclusion is, that the whole body of phenomena
of Spiritualism, including the past and the present, "oflfer to
the philosopher a new view of man and his relations to the
sphere in which he lives, by neglecting which the deepest mys-
teries of the human being are left unsolved."

This ingenious writer died before the more advanced phenom-
ena recorded in this volume were made known to the world.
Had he lived to become acquainted with them, he might have
found that, whatever there may be of truth in his theory, is not
inconsistent with the fact of the agency and appearance of dis-
embodied spirits.

Professor A. Mahan, Mr. Charles Bray, Dr. Samson, of Co-
lumbia College, and others who have adopted the apneumatic or
no-spirit view in regard to the phenomena, have done little more
than either to put in new and expanded form the arguments of
Dr. Rogers, or to Substitute for his notion of an odic force the
simple hypothesis of nervous action. None of these opponents
of the spiritual theory deny the facts. Professor Mahan says,
" We shall admit the facts claimed by Spiritualists. We admit the
facts for the all-adequate reason that, after careful inquiry, we
have been led to conclude that they are real. We think that no
candid inquirer xvho carefully investigates can come to any other
conclusion*^

The facts being admitted, Professor Mahan finds in Reichen-
bach's odic force the mysterious agent by which they are mani-
fested. But it is somewhat remarkable that Reichenbach himself,
the original hypothetist of this odic force, modestly disclaims for
it all such power as these writers attribute to it. He avowedly
regards it merely as the means by which spiritual intelligence
manifests itself; as the channel through which it sends its
forces. That it is in itself an intelligent, personal principle,
able to take the shape of the human body, and to conduct itself
like an individual in the flesh, makes no part of his hypothesis ;
and this notion certainly demands as great an eftbrt of credulity
as any theory of direct spiritual action.

ARAGO ON THE PHENOMENA.

221

' President Samson is of opinion that all the manifestations,
supposed to be spiritual, are really natural, the working of an
agent intermediate between mind and matter, for which agent
the can give no better name than the nervous fluid.

He tells us that, when, in 1848, Arago witnessed the attraction
and repulsion of heavy bodies at the presence of Angelique
Cottin, a nervous factory-girl, who, having begun suddenly to
exhibit this wonderful derangement, was carried up to Paris,
to appear before the Academy, that great philosopher, being
asked his opinion about it, remarked, " That is yet to be set-
tled. It seems to have no identity with electricity; and yet,
when one touches her in the paroxysms, there is a shock, like
that given by the discharge of the Ley den jar. It seems to have
no identity with magnetism proper, for it has no re-action on
the needle ; and yet the north pole of a magnet has the most
powerful re-action on her, producing shocks and trembling.
This is not effected through the influence of her imagination, as
the magnet has the same influence, whether brought secretly
near her, or otherwise.* It seems a new force. At all events,
whatever if be, time and research will determine, with a sufli-
cient number of cases. One thing, however, seems to be certain :
the phenomena of this case show, very plainly, that whatever
the force is which acts so powerfully from the organism of this
young girl, it does not act alone. It stands in mysterious rela-
tion to some mundane force, which acts and re-acts with it.
This is witnessed in the re-action which external things have
upon her person, often attracting her with great power. It is a
curious inquiry, and may open to us new resources in the nature
of man and of the world, of which we have little dreamed."

In two bulky volumes, published in 1855, Count Agenor de
Gasparin, takes a view of the question not dissimilar to that of
President Samson, whom he quotes and commends. The Count

* This is no proof^ however, that her imaginatioii may not have operated in the
c»«e ; for her clairvoyance may have' enabled her to detect the instances in which
the magnet was secrttfy brought near her.

222

PLANCHETTE.

is a leading Protestant writer of the evangelical school, and is
well known to Americans. He avows his belief in the reality of
the early phenomena, gives an extended narrative of facts elicited
by himself at a series of sittings, in 1853, shows the fallacy of
Faraday's attempted explanation. He replies, at length, to the
suggested fear that to admit the facts will give ground for super-
stition and credence in false miracles. He shows the marked
line between just confidence in undeniable facts and the perver-
sions of imagination, by reference to Ammianus Marcellinus, the
old Roman historian, who refers to /a^/c-revelations the perfect
counterpart of those of 1848. The people of Rome were expect
ing that Theodorus would become the emperor; and, of course,
when the tables were consulted, they gave the letters of that
name; whereas it proved that Theodosius\i^c2iVCiQ. the emperor.
He quotes', also, Tertullian's mention, in these words : " Mensae
divinare consueverunt : " Tables are accustomed to divine.

He quotes a case examined by Chamillard, doctor of the Sor-
bonne, in the seventeenth century, in which the same result was
reached as that reported by the French Academy's commission to
report on Mesmer's experiments, which prior result was thus sen-
tentiously recorded : *' Multa ficta, pauca vera, k dsemone nulla : "
Many things fictitious^ a few true, from a demon none. Coming to
the consideration of the natural cause of the phenomena, Gaspa-
rin ascribes them to the excess of nervous susceptibility. All that
is real in such as are regarded as supernatural is to be found, he
thinks, in an undue and diseased action of the nervous organism.
He quotes from Arago what that philosopher says on the subject
of Mesmer*s experiments : "Effects, analogous or inverse, might
evidently be occasioned by a fluid subtle, invisible, impondera-
ble ; by a sort of nervous fluid, or of magnetic fluid, if this be
preferred, which may circulate in our organs." He also quotes
from Cuvier, who was of opinion that the effects of mesmerism
are clearly due "to some sort of communication established be-
tween the nervous systems " of the subject and the operator.

His conclusion is substantially like that of the Report of the
French Commission on Mesmerism ; namely, that the reported

THEORY OF HALLUCINATION.

223

phenomena of the so-called spiritual manifestations are to be
referred partly to errors of testimony, arising from the natural
spirit of man to exaggerate the character and number of the
facts; partly to the hallucination of an excited imagination,
which suggests an exaggerated idea of the cause as supernat-
ural; and chiefly to the real action of the nervous fluids by which
phenomena analogous to those in electricity and magnetism are
wrought.

The new and irreconcilable facts that have come up since
Gasparin arrived at these conclusions, make his theory wholly
unsatisfactory at this time. It will not do to attribute to hallu-
cination the results of the calm scrutiny of hundreds, nay,
thousands, of competent observers, free from all undue excite-
ment or bias, investigating the phenomena with the perfect
composure which continued familiarity must always give, and
actuated by no sectarian or anti-sectarian preconceptions.
There are a multitude of witnesses now to the extraordinary, as
well as to the ordinary, facts of Spiritualism ; and some other
hypothesis must be resorted to than that of ** errors in testi-
mony." "V^hen such men as De Morgan, Wallace, Varley,
Denton, Owen, Wilkinson, Shorter, Howitt, Leigh ton, Cole-
man, Gunning, Gray, Mountford, Ashburner, Bell, Farrar, Liv-
ermore, Brittan, and hundreds of others in all the various
professions, testify to a certain class of phenomena, the pooh-
pooh argument, in reply, has lost its power, and falls flat,
except on the ears of the uninformed.

. To admit all the marvellous facts of Spiritualism, and still to
reject the spiritual hypothesis in accounting for them, seems
to require, at the first thought, a greater stretch of credulity
than the wildest spiritual belief. But Mr. J. W.* Jackson, of
England, an experienced mesmerist, a man of science, and a
full believer in spiritual realities, admits the most startling of
. the recent phenomena; but, like Sir David Brewster, will not
** give in " to the theory of spiritual agency in their production.
He assumes that mesmerism, minus spirits, explains all. He
treats modem Spiritualism as Comte treats all religious creeds,

224

PLANCHETTE.

/simply as a new illustration of the same tendency of mind which
/ induced the human race, in earlier ages, to attribute* great natu-

Iral phenomena, such as thunder, eclipses, volcanoes, &c., to the
intervention of spiritual beings, angry deities.
"The spiritual hypothesis," he says, "is the product of a law
of the human mind, in virtue of which it is impelled to supple-
ment knowledge by superstition ; and so, when there is no as-
signable cause for a phenomenon, it is at once relegated to the
realm of miracle." — "Originating in a mental necessity for
assigning some cause, real or imaginary, for every clearly recog-
nized effect, the spiritual hypothesis is an inevitability with
minds at the theologic stage, whenever a phenomenon tran-
scends the range of recognized scientific knowledge." — " In
earlier ages, the spiritual hypothesis, or, in other words, a
theory of the miraculous, amply sufficed as an explanation of
all otherwise inexplicable phenomena."

In reply to these views, Mr. Andrew Leighton remarks, ** I
doubt not every competent and patient investigator will find
that, after the most careful discrimination of facts, after dis-
counting all that is clearly mundane, and all that is not clearly,
but only possibly, mundane, there will remain a residuum, which,
if we are to attempt the resolution of the facts at all, will necessi-
tate the supramundane hypothesis, and thus render it, so far
from being * inadmissible,' realty the only rationally admissible
one, since it will be found to be the only hypothesis adequate to
cover all the facts."

The rival hypothesis he sets down as this : " That the brain
has in it active potentialities unknown to consciousness, — not
only unknown, but opposed to consciousness ; to which poten-
tialities, as a last resource, must be referred the otherwise inex-
plicable and indomitable facts."

" Notwithstanding," adds Mr. Leighton, " what has been
said as to the rationality, and hideed necessity, of the spiritual
hypothesis, it is not meant that this is to be held, except as an
hypothesis, ready to be yielded up immediately that another
capable of more perfectly explaining the facts, in accordance

MR. J. w. Jackson's theory.

225

with all other truths of science, can be produced. Until the
scientific mind, par excellence^ shall produce that, it had better
suppress its scorn and its supercilious condescensions."

With respect to the facts of Spiritualism, Mr. Jackson makes
as large admissions as any Spiritualist could desire; yet his
explanation is substantially the same as that of other upholders
of the anti-spiritual hypothesis.

" Spiritual manifestations," he says, " are divided into mental
and physical; and the spiritual hypothesis presupposes that,
under each, there are phenomena to whose production Nature
is inadequate. Let us now test this in reference to the first
class, where it may be freely admitted that you not only have
intelligence, but supersensuous intelligence ; that is, you obtain
information beyond the ordinary cognition of the medium, and
sometimes beyond the knowledge or experience of any one
present at the circle, and this, too, in reference to things past,
distant, or future. It is in this way, indeed, that you have
obtained a very large moiety of your converts, and those too
often of a rather superior order of intellect ; and yet there is
nothing here but a manifestation of that clairvoyant power with
which the mesmerist has been long familiar.

"After more than twenty years' experience, in which I have
employed lucides of^arious ages and of both sexes, I could not
fix the limits of thre extraordinary faculty, and say. Here the
natural power of the medium terminates, and there spiritual aid
must have supervened. This probably reveals to you the key
by which I propose to unlock the mysteries of the circle. The
latter, when rightly constituted, is a most powerful mesmeric
battery, of whose nervo-vital current the medium is the duly
susceptible recipient. Now, in the present very imperfect state
of our knowledge, it is quite impossible to predicate the maxi-
mum of result obtainable under such conditions, and unless we
can do so, the assumption of spiritual aid, in any particular
case, is perfectly gratuitous; quite permissible as a soothing
succeedaneum to undisciplined minds, but altogether inadmissi-
ble as a scientific hypothesis. The same remark applies to

226

PLANCHETTE.

spontaneous exaltation, whether of a literary, artistic, or even
prophetic character, on the part of a medium. Such unusual
displays of mental power are simply manifestations of ecstatic
lucidity, taking that particular form ; and, in the preseiit^tate
of our knowledge, it is quite impossible to say what are the
unaided limits of a gifted human mind in this direction."

On the subject of levitation, elongation of body, and other
phenomena, Mr. Jackson says, " But when we find lightness of
body frequently recorded as an accompaniment of ecstatic illu-
mination, not only in Christian, but also Brahminical and
Buddhistic legends, the idea is at once suggested that it may be
the result, in certain temperaments, of unusually exalted nervous
function. Such facts suggest the institution of further experi-
ments, rather than the hasty formation of a spiritual hypothesis ;
for they seem to indicate that nervo-vital power has in it an
element antagonistic to the action of gravitation ; and lightness
of body may be only an extreme manifestation of this force, the
accompaniment of a crisis, or the effect of consentaneous action
in a well-constituted and harmonious circle of human organ-
isms."

As to the movements of ponderable articles, these are referred,
by Mr. Jackson, to " the intervention of life-power under condi-
tions not yet known to science." ^

Upon this Mr. Leighton remarks, "We Hold that the intelli-
gence and will implied in the physical manifestations are not
those of the passive media in whose presence they occur, but are
demonstrably those of beings distinct from the members of the
mundane company. Sometimes, as Mr. Jackson knows, they
are said to be actually visible to one or more of the company,
though invisible to the rest. The moral argument of the integ-
rity of the seers — not to be got over by mere psychological

iqi putat ions — has therefore to be met, besides the evidence of

seers and non-seers alike, when the physical manifestations
alone are considered. That * there is really nothing more
miraculous in the apparently spontaneous ascent of a table to
the ceiling than in the corresponding ascent of a needle under

THE SPIRITUAL HYPOTHESIS.

227

the influence of a magnet,* is quite as firmly asserted by the
Spiritualist as by the Nonrspiritualist. Why should Mr. Jackson
imply, and so constantly iterate, the implication to the contrary?
His notion of the intervention of a vague * life-power* — an
unconscious efflux of the company, accomplishing all the intel-
ligent voluntary motions imposed upon the table or other pas-
sive piece of furniture, sometimes according to the desire pf
those present, sometimes against their wishes, and in defiance
of their every eflfort to prevent them — approaches far more
nearly the * miraculous ' than the hypothesis he so persistently
attempts to identify therewith. .

" Repeating the sophism already exposed in other relations,
Mr. Jackson says, * As we are ignorant of the power of a life-
circle, it is impossible to assign limits to its effects ; and until
these are reached, spiritual intervention is a needless accessory.*
Was it the Ufe-pozver of the circle, which on one occasion con-
centrated itself in my presence, seized a slate-pencil, and wrote
out a sentence which was certainly not in the mind of any who
were visibly present? Was it the same power which manipu-
lated the keys of an accordion, and played, with artistic ability
and feeling never surpassed, the tune of * Home, Sweet Home,*
in opposition to the expressed wishes of several present, who
asked for other tunes? Talk of the miraculous in Spiritualism I
Can any thing be more miraculous or gratuitous than the con-
ceptions of this votary of science in his endeavors to escape the
only hypothesis which, without straining, naturally and com-
pletely covers all the facts? To assume that the mesmeric power
of the circle, in any form or degree, is capable of accounting for
such facts, appears to us as gratuitous, not to say ridiculous, as
to apply Faraday's unconscious muscular hypothesis in explana-
tion of the movement of physical objects upon which there was
no mus^cular impact, or upon which the muscular impact was
strenuously exerted the opposite way.*'

The remarks of the "London Spiritual Magazine** (May,
1S6S), in relation to Mr. Jackson's theory, deserve to be quoted
in this connection. We here subjoin them : —

228

PLANCHETTE.

" Mr. Jackson, the author of * Ecstatics of Genius,* and of
various lectures on mesmerism, has long, like other magnetists,
found a great difficulty in accepting the phenomena called spir-
itual as actually proceeding from spirits. Some years ago, a
friend of ours, on reading Mr. Jackson's mesmeric publications,
told him that he saw exactly where he was, — that he was on the
staircase leading to the chambers of Spiritualism, but had not
reached the rooms for which the staircase was built. Mr. Jack-
son is on the staircase still, and, to all appearance, likely to
remain there. In an address delivered some time ago to the
Glasgow Spiritualists, he ass^jred them that he fully admitted
the reality of the phenomena which they attributed to spiritual
influence, but that he was quite satisfied himself that spirits had
nothing whatever to do with them. In this assurance we are
persuaded that Mr. Jackson is perfectly sincere ; . and, still more,
that he cannot possibly come to any othei conclusion. It is the
result of the pre-occupation of his brain with lucid magnetic
theories, from which he can no more escape than the bird that
is once enclosed in the net of the fowler. That he will ever
persuade a single Spiritualist, however, to adopt his convic-
tions, we cannot encourage him to hope. Louis Biichree, in his
* Natur und Geist ' and * Kraft und Stoflf,* and Carus Sterne, in
his * Naturgeschichte,* have gone over the whole of his ground
most elaborately and ably, but with the discouraging result of
convincing nobody who had come to the examination of these
phenomena with a mind free from professional theories.

"Many men, eminent for their habits of metaphysical re-
search ; many men of profound science, — have tested the char-
acter of these phenomena, and have been compelled to adopt
the spiritual theory as the only one capable of explaining them.
Professor Hare, of America, entered on this inquiry with as
strong a persuasion as any man has ever entertained, that he
should rout the spiritual theory altogether. As a man of prac-
tical science, a profound electrician, and an avowed disbeliever
in revelation, he entered on the inquiry with the utmost care,
and pursued it with the utmost pertinacity for two years ; but he

THE ANTI-SPIRITUAL HYPOTHESIS. 229

came out of it a firm believer in the spiritual agency, con-
curred in the manifestations, and proclaimed himself a thorough
Christian. Judge Edmonds, as a lawyer, went through the same
laborious inquiry with the same result. Professor Mapes and
Dr. Gray, of America, are also examples of philosophers as
accomplished and as practical as those who are likely to follow
in the same tracks If philosophers, as Mr. Jackson affirms, be
the only men capable of unravelling the mystery of these phe-
nomena, here we have a number of them ; and their decision is
adverse to his position.

"Mr. Jackson in a stately and ex cathedra style assures us
that, in his opinion, physical laws will explain the whole of
the phenomena. That such laws, and others yet little known,
are at work in these matters, evjery one knows ; but it seems to
us to require very little acquaintance with these things, to per-
ceive that the laws which operate in them are conjointly resident
in spirits incarnate and spirits de-carnated. Mr. Jackson refers
to the great fact, that the intelligences involved in these phe-
nomena have uniformly asserted that they are individual and
actual spirits, and not mere laws and forces ; have asserted this
in every country and to every class of people ; and he thinks he
has an answer to this rather strong fact. In all ages and coun-
tries, he says, communications, professing to proceed from spir-
its, have reflected the creeds and opinions of those to whom
they came. Pagans, Greek, and Roman' philosophers, Buddh-
ists, Brahmists, Chinese followers of Fohi and Lootse, Chris-
tian, Catholic, and Protestant, all have received communications
in accordance with their own beliefs. Nay : mythologic gods
have appeared to mythologists ; the Virgin Mary and Catholic
saints, to Catholics. Mr. Jackson's conclusion, therefore, is, that
all these communications and apparitions are the objective re-
sults of the subjective powers and spirits of those who indulge
in these occult practices and speculations.

**The fact is correct and historical; but the explanation, in
our opinion^ comes from a very diflferent quarter. It is the
result of ft fixed law, — Mike draws to like.* Beyond this, we

230

PLANCHETTE.

know enough now to understand that spirits carry with them
into the other world the views, opinions, habits, creeds, preju-
dices, and self-wills which had taken possession of them here.
The immense hosts of spirits, * gone before,* are always anxious
to perpetuate their peculiar faiths and opinions amongst their
successors on earth, and spare no pains or disguises to effect
this. To the old Greeks and Romans they came in the shape of
their gods ; they delivered oracles to them as their gods ; to the
Roman Catholics they came as the Holy Mother, and as saints
and saintesses. To those who think themselves philosophical,
they still come as Socrates, Bacon, Shakespeare, Franklin, and
the like, though with very little evidence of the intellect or
genius of those great souls. As the Romans believed that, at
the battle of Cannse, their soldiers and those of the Carthagi-
nians still continued the conflict in the air after they were slain ;
and as the hosts of Attila, in the battle of the Huns, were said
to do the same, — we believe and have no doubt, that every
species of departed spirit, and that in hosts and countless bat-
talions, are still zealously infusing their own views, and the
views of their partisanships, into the minds of their successors
on earth, and endeavoring to rule here still, and thus stir up the
worst passions and practices of this afflicted world.

"Now, though the forces operating in these phenomena, pro-
fess themselves to belong to different churches and religions,
different creeds and philosophies, they all agree in one point;
namely, that they are individual spirits, and not mere forces,
or laws physical or spiritual. Their evidence regarding this fact
is clear, uniform, and persistent; and for this universal and
unvarying expression there must be a cause, and that cause can-
not be a lie. Why should mere laws, physical or spiritual,
be lies? How can they be lies, if they are laws and forces
impressed upon the living cosmos by its Creator? Mr. Jackson,
on reflection, must perceive the dilemma into which his theory
has led him. And let him for a moment suppose that these
powers, whatever they be, had as uniformly, as clearly and
persistently declared themselves to be merely laws and forces ;

JUDGMENTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC. 23 1

suppose, in fact, that they had declared themselves on the side
of the philosopher, — does he not see. with what an lo Paean of
triumph they would have been received? with what a clamor
the philosopher would have denounced all attempts to declare
them not laws and forces, but spirits ?

** Mr. Jackson is of opinion that scientific men are the only
ones qualified to judge of these phenomena, and to bring to
light what they really are. No idea can be more delusive.
That scientific men are the best judges of their own natural
laws and processes, we readily admit ; but in these phenomena
there are laws in operation which they are totally ignorant of,
and which they cannot possibly test by any apparatus or mate-
rials in their laboratories. Beyond and besides this, they are,
from their prejudices and adopted theories, totally disqualified
for a clear and effective examination of this question. Their
minds have become stereotyped in particular theories, to which
the phenomena of Spiritualism run counter. Mr. Jackson him-
self is a living proof of such men being totally disqualified for
the free and penetrating examination of such a subject. He
believes in all the phenomena, but denies the conclusions drawn
by the common sense of many millions of men, and can hjring
himself to believe that intelligences which can come, and reason
acutely, and make themselves seen, heard, and felt avowedly as
individual spirits, are mere laws and forces emanating from, or
existing in, the persons who perceive them.

" And what is really astounding is, that Mr. Jackson, whilst
uttering so decided an opinion, shows that he has totally misun-
derstood the nature of the phenomena on which he discourses.
He puts into the same category the * fiowers, fruit, birds,* &c.,
* which form the stock wonders of the circle.* He imagines
them to issue from the vital forces of the circle itself, and
to disappear an'd dissolve again rapidly. This may apply to
the hand which appears at the Davenport siances, and to the
fiowers which were brought by the apparition wife of Mf . Liver-
more, of New York; but the flowers, fruits, &c., which are pro-
duced at the siances of Mr. Guppy, and the birds which have

PLANCHETTE.

appeared at these sdances, are real earthly flowers and birds,
which are brought through walls and doors of closed rooms,
and remain. One of the birds remains in a cage to this day.
Some of the fruits are kept by those who received them. They
were not produced by any physical power of the circle. They
came whence no one knew ; and thty could not, therefore, come
in consequence of any internal power exercised by the party
assembled. They must be brought by beings, reasoning beings
out of the flesh ; and no philosopher can possibly propound a
more simple or palpable theory than the universal one, that
) they are brought by spirits who aflirm themselves to be spirits.

" Again, the iron collar, which we now hear is made to pass
over the head of a youth in America, though seven inches less
in interior circumference than the head, is not a collar evolved
magically from the minds or the latent forces of the persons of
the circle, but is an actual collar, made without any hinge or
opening by the blacksmith. The philosopher, who shall explain
this phenomenon, must know a great deal more about matter
than the most profound physiologist who ever lived; and, in
our single opinion, it can never be explained, except on the
hypothesis that matter, under the influence of spirit, is in a
condition totally difierent from its condition when operated
upon solely by natural laws, however subtle and potent.

"We are so far from entertaining Mr. Jackson's idea that
scientific men are the best qualified to examine these singular
phenomena, that we feel sure that so soon as they are compelled,
like himself, to admit the reality of the facts, their scientific
prejudices will lead them vehemently to endeavor to treat them-
as the results of material laws, as he himself does. This will
assuredly become the philosophical phase of the question, when-
ever the denial of tht fact is at an end. We cannot hope, that,
on having made this step of advance, the philosophers will
have got much nearer the truth, because they will, from habit,
persist in seeking for the solution of the mystery in a direction
in which it is not to be found. The plain sense of mankind will
still march on far ahead of them."

DOUBLE-GOERS.

Another critic asks, "Has not Mr. Jackson resuscitated the
theories of Democritus and Epicurus, peopling the universe with
BldcjXa, or imagery the objective world has mirrored forth into
space? Epicurus tell us that our brain imagery is constantly
flitting about, distinguishable from the reflected forms of an
objective reality, by its greater subtileness and evanescent char-
acter. He says, * The imagery of the senses, and of our phan-
tasy, are realities ('Evapy^f oAoyof), and cannot be denied.*"

We do not see a difficulty in admitting both the pneumatic
and apneumatic solution for these manifestations. It is not
unlikely that many of the minor phenomena, attributed with
sincerity by many partially developed mediums to spirits, may
be produced by the unconscious exercise of spiritual powers
latent in the individual ; while other phenomena are of so ex-
traordinary a character that the more rational explanation may
be found in the theory of the application of an external spirit-
ual intelligence or force.

The narratives of apparitions of living persons are very
numerous, and the facts collected in this volume are not incon-
sistent with the possibility of such phenomena. The Germans
have a familiar word to designate persons of whom they are
related ; calling them doftpelgangers or double-goers, Jung Still-
ing says, " Examples have come to my knowledge in which sick
persons, overcome with an unspeakable longing to see some
absent friend, have fallen into a swoon, and during that swoon
have appeared to the distant object of their aflfection."

In his," Footfalls on the Boundary of another World," Robert
Dale Owen gives a number of narratives which he personally
took pains to authenticate in relation to this subject. We select
the following : —

"In May, 1540, Dr. D , a noted physician of Washington,

was residing with his wife and his daughter, Sarah, near Piney
Point in Virginia. One afternoon the two ladies were walking
out in a copse-wood not far from their residence, when, at a dis-
tance on the road, coming towards them, they saw a gentleman.
* Sally,' said Mrs. D , * there comes your father to meet us.'

234

PLANCHETTE.

*I think not,' the daughter replied : * that cannot be papa; it is
not so tall as he.'

" As he neared them, the daughter's opinion was confirmed.

They perceived that it was not Dr. D , but a Mr. Thompson,

a gentleman with whom they were well acquainted, and who
was at that time, though they then knew it not, a patient of Dr.

D 's. They observed also, as he came nearer, that he was

dressed in a blue frock-coat, black satin waistcoat, and black
pantaloons and hat. Also, on comparing notes afterwards,
both ladies, it appeared, had noticed that his linen was particu-
larly fine, and that his whole apparel seemed to have been very
carefully adjusted.

" He came up so close that they were on the very point of
addressing him, but at that moment he stepped aside, as if to let
them pass ; and then, even while the eyes of both the ladies were
upon him, he suddenly and entirely disappeared.

" The astonishment of Mrs. D and her daughter may be

imagined. They could scarcely believe the evidence of their
own eyes. They lingered, for a time, on the spot, as if expect-
ing to see him re-appear; then, with that strange feeling which
comes over us when we have just witnessed something unexam-
pled and incredible, they hastened home.

"They afterwards ascertained through Dr. D , that his

patient Mr. Thompson, being seriously indisposed, was confined
to his bed ; and thai he had not quitted his room, nor indeed his
bed, throughout the entire day,

*• It may properly be added, that, though Mr. Thompson was
familiarly known to the ladies, and much respected by them as
an estimable man, there were no reasons existing why they
should take any more interest in him, or he in them, than in
the case of any other friend or acquaintance. He died just six
weeks from the day of the appearance.

"The above narrative is of unquestionable authenticity. It

was communicated in Washington in June, 1859, Mrs. D

herself, and the manuscript being submitted to her for revision,
was assented to as accurate."

DUPLICATED FORMS.

Our friend, Mr. Benjamin Coleman, supplies the following
remarks on this subject : ** Among the most intelligent in-
quirers with whom I conversed at Brighton, was a lady of title.
She told me that she was one of those present at the Davenport
sdance, held at the residence of Sir Hesketh Fleetwood. She
was seated in the dark siance by the side of a gentleman, whose
previous skepticism, he confessed to her, was fast disappearing
in the face of the facts they were witnessing, when a light was
suddenly struck, and both of them distinctly saw the form of Ira
Davenport glide close past them. This incident very much dis-
turbed the confidence of Lady L , and entirely satisfied the

skeptic that imposition was practised; and he left the room a

confirmed unbeliever. I told Lady L , that, on his return to

London, Mr. Ferguson ♦ spoke to me of this very fact, as one of
the most curious that had yet occurred at any of the stances.
He was holding, he said, the box of matches, as he usually
does, when the box was snatched from his hand, and a light was
struck by the invisible operator; and, during the momentary ig-
nition of the match, he plainly saw a form, apparently of a hu-
man figure. He said nothing at the moment, but whispering the
fact to Mr. Fay, he confirmed it ; and afterwards several of those
present admitted that they, too, had seen it. Mr. Ferguson,
however, was not aware that any one present supposed it to be
the actual person of Ira Davenport, as no observation to that
effect was made; and, as Ira Davenport was seen instantly
afterwards, when the light was restored, fast bound to his chair,

it was simply impossible that the suspicions of Lady L and

her friend could have been well founded. But admitting that
two competent witnesses did actually see the form of Ira Daven-
port on that occasion, it is corroborative of a very important
and interesting fact, and distinct phase of these puzzling mys-
teries of spiritual appearances ; namely, the duplication of in-
dividual form.

* The Rev. J. B. Ferguson, of Tennessee, a gentleman who has given a good deal
of attention to the spiritual phenomena, and whose testimony is believed to be above
suspicion. He was with the Davenports for a time in England.

236

PLANCHKTTK.

" Mr. Ferguson, who did not on that occasion recognize the
resemblance to Ira Davenport, nevertheless has, as he solemnly
asserts, seen at other times, when alone with them, the entire
duplicated form of Ira Davenport, and a part of Mr. Fay ; and,
in my first conversation with the Davenport Brothers, they told
me, among other curious facts of their extraordinary history,
that persons had said they had met one or the other of them in
places where they had not been. ' On one, occasion their father
went to a neighboring shop to order some fruit, when he was
told by the shopkeeper that his son Ira had just been there, and
had already ordered the fruit. It was, however, satisfactorily
proved that Ira had not left the house, and that the man must
have seen his ' wraith * or * double.*

"I may as well anticipate the question that will no doubt arise
in the minds of many : * That supposing the spirit of a living
person can assume a natural form and become an active intelli-
gent agent, producing mechanical effects, may not that account
for much of what we are accustomed to attribute to the presence
of the spirits of departed persons ? *

" I answer, * Tes! * but not all. We have too much evidence of
spiritual individual identity, and too many instances of direct
intelligence, perfectly independent of surrounding witnesses, to
admit the possibility of our own spirits acting on all occasions
the double, and deceiving our senses.

"Again it may be asked, *Do you think that any of the phe-
nomena which we are accustomed to attribute to spirits of the
dead may be produced by the spirits of the living.? * and again, I
answer, *YesI' After close observation and calm reflection
upon the whole range of these Davenport manifestations, I am
inclined to believe that the rope-tying and untying, the handling
and carrying about of musical instruments, &c., are partly
effected by their * doubles,' and it may be that these are in part
assisted by other spirits. The unerring certainty with which
the same phenomena are produced in the presence of the Daven-
ports day after day tends to confirm the opinion that their own
'spirits,' or 'doubles/ pioduce many of the mechanical effects

APPARITIONS OF LIVING PERSONS. 237

which we witness. On one occasion when they were bound in
the usual manner within the cabinet, and the test of filling their
hands with flour was applied, a group of four hands was seen;
and one of them I plainly saw was covered with flour.

"And another idea occurs to me: as it is certain that four
instruments are played upon at one time, requiring the agency
of six or eight hands, it may be that the medium's hands are not
only duplicated, but that they are triplicated and multiplied ac-
cording to the necessities of the case, and the existing condi-
tions and strength of the medium-power. We know that there
is upon record ample evidence of apparitional appearances of
persons still living, sometimes seen at the point of death,
sometimes days before, and held to be death warnings ; and at
other times of persons in health, and remaining so for an inde-
finite period, and again there are instances of persons seeing
themselves.*

"From these, and many other sources, much corroborative
evidence may be obtained to establish the fact that the spirit-
forms of living persons have been seen at various times and
places, and the theory, which I now venture to suggest, is, that
many manifestations which Spiritualists are accustomed to attrib-
ute to the spirits of the departed are, in truth, effected by their
own doubles.

" This idea can in no degree destroy our cherished belief in
the power departed spirits to communicate with us. On the
contrary, it tends to confirm it; for if spirits in the flesh can
assume a tangible form and actually produce certain mechan-
ical effects, why may not spirits out of the flesh be able to do all
this and much more ? Let it be once recognized that spirit is a
living entity when separated from the fleshly body, having a
dynamic power over matter, and the great difiiculty which en-
shrouds the materialistic mind vanishes. I am not wedded to a
dogma on this or any other subject. I am only concerned to

* Kerner relates a case in which Mrs. HaufiS, who was ill in bed at the time, sud-
denly perceived the appearance of herself seated in a chair. As Kerner himself saw
nothing, the vision will of course be set down by the bcredulous as purely subjective.

238

PLANCHETTE.

uphold, in opposition to the arrogant assumptions of ignorant
skeptics, that the phenomena of which we speak are not to be
attributed to delusion, to legerdemain, or to any recognized
natural cause."

If in the human organism there are powers which enable a
man to see without eyes, and to do the work of the corporeal
tenses without the aid of those senses, then we may infer that it
is through tlie exercise of a faculty, independent not only of the
particular organ of sense, but of the whole physical body. Mr.
Jackson admits that, in virtue of our being spirits, we possess
the powers manifested by spirits," and that ** there is not the
least necessity for going outside of ourselves for these things."
Why, then, should the mere dropping of our material husk at
death disable us from producing, as disembodied spirits, the
same effects we could produce, through our purely spiritual
faculties, while we were in the flesh?

Undoubtedly, many phenomena referred by inexperienced ob-
serv^ers to the agency of spirits do not require a supramundane
solution. Whether in or out of the corporeal form, the human
spirit may have certain powers; and its phenomenal manifesta-
tions, whether it be in its embodied or disembodied state (and
when we speak of body we mean only the visible earthly body)^
may have many points of similarity. It may sometimes be diffi-
cult to trace the origin of facts occurring along that mysterious
border-land, where the visible and invisible seem to^blend.

The advocates of the no-spirit theory have much to say of
" unconscious cerebration " and the controlling agency of the
will; but may not this be only another name for that spiritual
contact of our souls with the spiritual world, from which, ac-
cording to Swedenborg, we get so many of our impressions.?

The puerile character of many of the communications for
which a spiritual origin is claimed; the reckless assumption of
the names of great men and women by pretended spirits ; the
muthorof some imbecile doggerel, claiming to be Shakespeare;

designer of some atrocious picture, signing himself Michael
Angdoi and the utterer of some stupid commonplace askine: us

FALLIBILITY OF SPIRITS.

to believe he is Lord Bacon, — of course make the spiritual pre-
tensions of the communicants ridiculous in the estimation of
most persons of taste, But when it is realized that spirits are
not a kind of minor gods ; that they carry with them the charac-
ters they formed in this, or, it may be, in anterior lives ; that
there are among them the frivolous, the vain, the mendacious,
and the malignant, with 9II their imperfections on their heads,
just as they left this world, — the fact that a worthless communi-
cation may yet be spiritual in its origin does not seem so difficult
of belief.

These indications that the next life is a state similar in kind
to this present life, and only a step higher in an ascending series
of existences ; one into which we carry our human nature, and
in which progress * is but gradual, — are contrary to the general
theological conceptions of the next stage of being, and are dis-
tasteful to the feelings of many, whose notions of the hereafter,
of the "saved" and the "elect," are of a state of passive beati-
tude. But perhaps the views of modern Spiritualism on this
subject derive some support from analogy, harmonizing as they
do with those facts of physical progress taught by geology and
by the study of organic forms from primeval times.

Since we have an eternity before us, in which to grow in
knowledge and in virtue, why should we expect to mount at
once, without any merit or effort of our own, to the summit of
all possible bliss and wisdom? Spiritualism, rightly under-
stood, might teach us that the true kingdom of heaven is not
'Without man, either in this present or in any other home, where
his spirit may successively dwell in those "many mansions,"
the scenes of the divine bounty and power ; but, as Christ tells
us, within^ in the will, the affections, and the mind.

Our sketch of the noteworthy theories that have been put

• " Mortal progress," says H. J. Slack, " and, for aught we know, part of immortal
progress also, is accompanied by occasional retrogression.'* Or, perhaps, our course '
of ascension being, as Goethe teHs us, spiral^ what may seem retrogression may be
one of the conditions of progress.

240

PLANCHETTE.

forth on the subject of these phenomena would be incomplete
without a mention of that of Professor Daumer, whose work,
** Das Geisterreich," appeared in Dresden in 1867. According to
his pneumatologj, ** Ghosts are neither bodies nor souls, but a
third entity which he calls eidolon, by which he understands the
direct self-manifestation and representation o{th^J>syche (soul).
The soul is restricted to the corporeal exhibition only so long as
it animates tlie body. Once released, by the death of the latter, it
can manifest its immanent reality in any way it pleases. It can
even reproduce whole episodes from its former life, including
any number of figures of itself or of other persons. It can also
produce sounds, and perform other material acts."

We have already seen that Baron Reichenbach, a distinguished
German chemist, and the discoverer of creosote, finds in what he
calls od or the odtc force the medium of many phenomena. He
reports that his sensitive subjects saw, at the poles of the magnet,
odic light, and felt, from the near contact of large free crystals,
odic sensations, which by Reichenbach himself, and others as
insensible as he to odic impressions, were wholly unperceived.

At first distrustful of the spiritual significance of certain
phenomena, Reichenbach, if we may believe Mr. D. Hornung,
of Berlin, now entertains views not opposed to Spiritualism.
While in London in i86i, at the residence of Mr. Cowper, son-
in-law of Lord Palmerston, he attended a spiritual circle.

** On that occasion," says Mr. Hornung, " two media, Mrs.
Marshall and her niece were present, who did not understand a
word of German. Reichenbach therefore, after the rapping had
commenced, put his questions intentionally in German ; and
they were answered correctly by raps on the table, and he had
the names of several members of his family correctly given. In
regard to one name, however, he began to doubt the capacity of
the table to give it; the name to be spelled being ' Frieder-
icke,' while it spelled the letters *R. I.* But when the name
* R I C K E * was completed, the baron was much surprised, as
his sister had been wont to be called ' Ricke.'

** Now comes the most remarkable part of the performance,

REICHENBACH ON SPIRITUALISM. 24 1

and I give it in the baron's own words. He says, * The answers
were rapped by the foot of the table in a brightly lighted room.
I wished to ascertain whether the rapping could not be pre-
vented, and for this purpose I leaned with my breast against one
of the feet of the table, taking hold of two others with both
hands, and pressing them down. The rapping of the feet
ceased ; but the rapping continued above me, on the top of the
table. All at once, by a sudden jerk, the table dragged me for-
ward, with the carpet on which it stood ; and I lay prostrate in
the middle of the room.*

"This experiment convinced the baron that, besides the
emanation of the odic element, higher spiritual powers can
manifest themselves ; and these he now no longer ignores, but
recognizes them as facts of experience, for which, however, he as
yet knows no explanation." He regards "the great influences
of od upon the human spirit " as the mere " physical side of the
matter," — " the roots by which it adheres firmly to the ground ; "
and he is thankful to see the day when all his former -discoveries
show themselves as the portal through which it is possible for
him " to go forward into the spiritual department."

A writer in " Human Nature," under the signature of " Ho-
nestas," is of opinion that the transition brought about by death,
though carrying with it a vast change, does not so completely
alter our nature as -to render mundane intercommunication im-
possible. The laws governing the physical conditions of the
next sphere must be in harmony with those that rule this, to us,
natural world ; these laws being only an outgrowth from those
of our present condition, and correlatives of them.

Why then is the intercommunication restricted to the limited
bounds of a medium's presence? The writer aphoristically
replies. Within our coarser earth-body dwells an ether-body,
which derives its elementary sustenance from the ether or odic
element, from out which this visible, ponderable world has
grown forth, with its plastic, centralizing tendency. Our ether-
body manifests its presence in the nerve aura, or odic element
ffirst noticed by Reichenbach), in the streaming forth of a

343

PLANCHETTB.

mediated, organically centralized ether element, which ele-
ment sustains this ether-body, — in the same manner as the food
and earth elements, which the organism assimilates, support
our bodily condition. A double action is thus carried on in
the animal organism; namely, a drawing of supply from the
centralized earth elements, simultaneously with that from the
primary ether or odic element. In the mesmeric fluid which
passes from the mesmerizer to his subject, the odic force is
transmitted ; and a connection is established between the two,
sufficiently primary to mediate a physical correspondence be-
tween them. Here is the key to the solution of the problem
of spiritual manifestations.

These are divisible into psychical and physical. The psychi-
cal effects are produced by an action akin to the mesmeric
action ; that is, the mind of the operating agent, by an action
of the will, throws a current of the odic power of it« nerve
aura on to the nerve aura of the terrestrial being, and an effect
similar to that of the mesmerizer upon his patient results; a
phenomenon too well known to need explanation.

The second, or physical effects, arise from an action upon the
organically mediated free nerve aura of the body of the medium,
which aura enables the spirit to create an organism or mechan-
ism, rendering action upon our ponderable matter possible, and
allowing of the production of the physical phenomena of sound,
movement of bodies, &c. ; appearances familiar to the observer
of spiritual manifestations. This centralization can only, how-
ever, take place by means of the mediating presence of the
nerve aura, enabling a condensation into ponderable matter to
be effected. The visible, ponderable world is but a phase in the
gpreat chain of ever - continuing progress and development.
The imponderable, and, to us, invisible world, is, in reality,
the permanent and lasting state, from out which the soul brings
with it its principle of life, that which is continuous and imper-
ishable, the power of mediating for its own use the supplying*
element. It has, too, the power, by right of its earth-born state
and bodily organism, of mediating the coarser, ponderable ele-

THEORY OF HONESTAS. 343

ments of our present condition. But the terrestrial mediation
can only be effected by the aid of an organism fitted for that
special object and use. This mechanism our earth-body fur-
nishes. The spirit-soul does not, however, possess this : its
organism is different, finer, undoubtedly more complex than
ours.

By the transition called death, the soul has parted with this,
for mundane purposes, adapted organism. But to enable a spirit
to operate upon material things, an organism has to be formed
adapted for that function : this embodying cannot, however,
take place unless aided by the mediating presence of the organic
nerve aura of a living being. In the embryonic evolution, the
mediating element is the maternal one; and here, too, in obe-
dience to laws of development, the embryo being, once having
attained its growth, takes 'its place on earth with an inde-
pendent central self-existence. The spirit-soul, when incarnat-
ing itself in a material envelope, can only do so by the aid of the
nerve aura of a living being, upon which it only momentarily
acts, which action is rendered possible by the accident of an
afiinity, enabling a temporary use to be effected, — this use being
restricted, however, within the narrow limits prescribed by the
supply which the organism of the medium furnishes; and,
further, subject to endless interruptions from external causes;
as, for instance, over -excitement, or alarm, or atmospheric
changes.

The extreme uncertainty of spiritual phenomena; the diffi-
culty, even when produced, of prolonging their duration beyond
a few minutes ; and more especially the diflliculty of giving a
continuity to the more developed forms of spirit appearances, —
confirms this view of the dependence of visible, tangible, spirit-
ual manifestations upon our organism, and the necessity of an
agreement of our natures with the spirit operating upon the
nerve aura of the medium.

This writer gives the name of fre-develofmeni to that change
of organic form of our ether-body taking place during life, and
by which 'the transition to the next state is mediated, prepared

244 PLANCHETTE.

This change is always in accord with the sphere we have to join
after death. And the centre — second centre — is the organism
thus changed to adapt itself to the onward and next sphere.
Decay and death follow this change as a necessary sequel;
that is, as pre-development proceeds, we cast off the organism
adapted for this life ; it becomes old, not nourished by the sup-
plying elements that hitherto sustained it.

According to Leibnitz, every germ has its pre-existence.
Ever^' grade or plane of development of phenomenal life is the
outgrowth of a pre-existing state of things, which has prepared
the elements from which it has been evolved. This is a funda-
mental law of nature. The grade beneath and the grade above
are intimately connected with the gradation in which we exist.
In every grade, the next and superior grade exercises its influ-
ence, creates, or rather renders the growth possible, of an
organism adapted for existence in the next sphere, plane, or
grade.

We owe to the law of pre-development continuance of our
individuality. Were it not for a growth preparatory to the
entering into a next sphere or state, such grade not being
mediated, rendered by prior growth fit for our organism, con-
tinuous life would be impossible. Step by step, mediated by
prior growth, the soul progresses onward and onward in never-
ending ascent to the highest conceivable unfoldment of our
natures. The past is everlasting: the phenomenal life of the
present is but an unfolding of the past ; and the future, of which
this state will be the past, will be again only an unfoldment of
the present.

Accepting the theory of progressive growth, as proved, the
writer maintains that the forms of the world beyond this exist-
ence, must have developed from the forms of the antecedent
grades out of which they have been evolved, and that preserva-
tion of the type of the human form follows the soul in its
onward step into the next world.

Our next organism is mediated, prepared, by our mundane
organism ; and, this being so, it must depend in its development

DR. ASHBimNBR'S THEORY.

245

upon two conditions, physical and psychical ; must carry with
it, as it passes into the next sphere, the impress of the character
of its progress on earth. Thus our sins and shortcomings
impress themselves on our very organism; and the life that
now is shapes the life that is to be.

Such is an imperfect sketch of the theory of this ingenious
writer, who brings to the discussion a full, practical acquaint-
ance with the most remarkable of the phenomena obtained
through Mr. Home and other mediums.

Dr. John Ashburner, the translator of Reichenbach's " Dyna-
mics of Magnetism," and who was one of the first men in Eng-
land to investigate and accept the phenomena of 1848, in his
latest work, entitled " Notes and Studies in the Philosophy of
Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism," argues that every law in
the natural or physical world depends on the " grand trunk force
of universal gravitation," which being divisible into centripetal
and centrifugal, in other words, attractive and repulsive forces,
is, as the active principle, traceable through all the changes
which take place throughout the realm of nature. In the au-
thor's words, ** All change is necessarily dependent on these
forces; no chemical compositions or decompositions can take
place without them; they regulate the great orbs in space, as
well as the form of the minutest of the primitive crystalline
globules, of which every crystal in existence is built up." " In
vegetable existence, it determines a law of evolution when it
decrees the folding up of embryonic forces in those minute spher-
ules or germ-cells which develop vegetable crystals ; " and, " pro-
ceeding with these laws, we observe the law of evolution regu-
lating more complicated germ-cells in animal existence, but still
obedient to magnetic laws of polarity; " for " human beings, as
well as all other animals, vegetables, and minerals, within the
magnetic sphere of this magnetic earth, must necessarily partake
of the magnetic influences emanating from the grand trunk force
of universal gravitation." The author shows that all the phe-
nomena of the so-called forces of heat, light, and electricity, are
dependent on attraction and repulsion; and that these simple

246

PLANCH£TTS.

antagonistic forces are the sole principles bj which every change*
atomic or otherwise, is effected, under Almighty guidance
throughout the universe.

The author is a stanch opponent of the materialistic notion
that brain thinks, and consequently an assertor of the absolute
inertia of matter, which the Creator has made subject to the at-
tractive and repulsive principles involved in that which is called
gravitation or magnetism. Force, therefore, is the life and soul
of matter, which, controlled and regulated by it, manifests the
phenomena which are continuously taking place in the form,
size, weight, and color of objects, from the least unto the
greatest.

The condition of sleep and the cause of pain are aitributed
to the state of the magnetic currents in the animal economy :
** Sleep is the result of an attractive force, analogous to the at-
traction of gravitation ; and wakefulness results from a repulsion,
analogous to the centrifugal agency constituting a part of the
phenomena attendant on the great trunk force." The facts ad-
duced in evidence of the truth of this position are highly illus-
trative ; and the author contends that cases recorded by many
surgeons justify the conclusion that the molecules of the brain
being subjected to a central attractive force, is the cause of sleep ;
as the brain, when exposed, is seen to become smaller in that
state; and that a repellant action among its particles precede
the wakeful condition. The cause of pain is summed up in the
following: "The whole body, being a congeries of magnetic
molecules, must necessarily be subject to the laws regulating
polarities. Any change in the relations of the poles of living
animal molecules must be productive of a change in the sensi-
bilities of the part. Whether the change be the cause of pleas-
ure or of pain, must depend upon the faculties of the individual.
Endowed with a nervous system, the animal is susceptible of
sensations, without which, the idea of pleasure or pain becomes
absurd. The inference then remains, that pain is the result of
an extreme disturbance of the polarities of a part."

Dr. Ashburner accepts the spiritual hypothesis to the fullest

THE MARY JANB THEORY. 347

extent, and thinks that any other is wholly unsatisfactory in
view of all the facts and phenomena which he has tested.

Another theory, not undeserving of mention, is that put forth
in a work published in London, in 1863, and bearing the follow-
ing extraordinary title: "Mary Jane; or. Spiritualism Chemi-
cally Explained." The author's hypothesis, audacious as it may
appear, is urged with a certain show of scientific learning. He
gives us the following summary of his conclusions : —

1. Man is a condensation of gases and elementary vapors.

2. These vapors are constantly exuding from the skin.

3. They charge (to use an electrical term) certain things ; viz.,
The sensitive plant, — and it droops. The human body (as in
mesmerism), — and it becomes insensible to pain. A table, —
and

4. When these vapors (which Reichenbach calls odic) emanate
from certain persons, who appear to have phosphorus in excess
in the system, they form a positively livings thinkings acting body
of material vapor, able to move a heavy table, and to carry on a
conversation, &c.

5. That the other persons sitting at the table affect the quality
of the manifestations, although the odic vapors from them are
not sufficiently strong to move the table, or act intelligently
alone.

6. That we do not see the odic emanations from their fingers,
has nothing to do with the question ; for we can neither see heat
nor electricity, — and yet we admit the existence of both from
their effects.

7. Thus, if the medium knows nothing of music, and holds a
guitar, the sounds given out will be discordant, or such as might
be expected of a person knowing nothing of music; but, if a
good performer sits at the table at the same time as the medium,
the sounds will be harmonious. So, if a medium understands
nothing of drawing, and paper and pencil be put under the table,
scribbles will be produced; but if an artist sits at the table,
flowers or other artistic drawings will be produced ; although, in
neither case, could the artist produce the slightest movement of
the table, or manifestation whatever, without the medium.

24&

PLANCHETTE.

8. That this odic being thinks and feels exactly as the persons
from whose body it emanates ; that it possesses all the senses, —
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking; that
it makes up for the want of the muscular organs of speech,
by either an electrical power of rapping, or by guiding the me-
dium's hand, or by direct writing with pen or pencil.

9. That its power of sight is electrical; for it can see under a
domino, or what is in the adjoining room, — in short, where the
human eye cannot.

10. That its power of hearing is also electrical or superhu-
man.

11. That it is highly sensitive to odors, delighting in those of
flowers, and expressing repugnance to some.

12. That it can rap in two, and probably more, places simul-
taneously.

13. That it can carry on different conversations with different
individuals at the same time.

14. That its conversations with different persons will be re-
sponsive to the affections, the sentiments, and the religious
belief of each person it is talking with, although they are drawn
from one common source, — the odic vapor concentrated at, or
with which the table is charged, — and although those religious
creeds are entirely at variance. And if asked for the name of
the (presupposed) spirit, it will give the name either of the de-
sired relative, or of some high autHority (on religious matters)
in the specific creed of the person making the inquiry.

15. That, from various concurrent testimony, it appears fully
proved that this odic vapor possesses the power of taking the
shape of hands, arms, dress, &c., and even of an entire person,
dressed; and, such fact being certain, the statement that in
America photographs of both dead and living persons have been
obtained, ceases to be preposterous ; but that the souls of those
persons produced, or had any thing to do with those shapes,
does not appear to be any more proved, than that if a good Turk
received a message signed, " Mahomet," it would be accepted as
proof, either of the truth of the message, or that the deceased
Mahomet had any thing to do with it.

THE THEORY ANSWERED.

249

16. That, nevertheless, the high thought, philosophy, inde-
pendence, conciseness, and deep reflection evinced by many of
the answers and sentiments expressed by the odic fluid, point to
its connection with a general tkous^ht-atmosjtkere, as all-pervad-
ing as electricity, and which possibly is in itself, or is in intimate
connection with, the principles of causation of the whole uni-
verse.

Such is the bold theory of this chemical investigator. That
the emanations of the human body " may form themselves, with-
out our knowing any thing about it, into a distinct personality,
with the faculties of perception, memory, reason, and conscience,
— a personality that may rap, write, draw, carry on general con-
versation, make witty and moral observations, and not only
think, but * think deeply and profoundly,' and take to itself a
name (as, in the author's fanciful experience, it took the name
of * Mary Jane '), and, in short, in every way conduct itself like
an educated and well-behaved member of society, — is certainly
an astounding instance of the prodigious capabilities of * odic
vapor.* It is an hypothesis which, if it does not merely amuse,
is likely to startle men of science even more than the spiritual
theory itself; and their surprise is not likely to be diminished
on learning that the odic vapor is convertible into intellect;
that the odic emanations actually create life and intelligence;
and that there is a universal thought- atmosphere, resulting, we
presume, from the phosphorescent and other chemical emana-
tions from the collective brain of humanity, from which these
vaporous personages get the information and ideas which at the
time they may not in themselves possess.

"Admitting the extravagant assumption of a being evolved
from the chemical emanations of our physical substances ; nay,
more, admitting even that these emanations are imbued with our
special idiosyncrasies, — with our mental and moral qualities, —
still, as a derivative being, it could have only the knowledge,
ideas, and qualities of those from whom it proceeded. That
cannot come out of a man which is not in him. Hence, as our
author very consistently says in the words we have quoted:

PLANCHBTTB.

'This odic being thinks and feels exactly as the persons from
whose bodies it emanates.* Of course, if the hypothesis were
true, it must do so. But then, unfortunately for the hypothesis,
this * odic being ' will not do as he ought to do. He will some-
times think and feel differently from the persons from whose
bodies he is an out-birth. No fact in this inquiry is better known
or more firmly established than that spirits exhibit powers, and
maintain opinions surpassing, different from, and sometimes
even antagonistic to those of both medium and circle.

" In some instances mediums will give information altogether
outside the knowledge of themselves, or of any person present,*
and exhibit a mental force transcending their own natural
powers, as in others it will be equally below their natural ca-
pacity.

"We might pursue our argument from every phase of the
manifestations: from vision and prevision; from dreams and
apparitions; from impressions, presentiments, and warnings;
from clairvoyance and trance; from prediction, possession, and
personation ; these all demonstrate the same conclusion, — that
the acting power is no way a part of ourselves, but is wholly
discreted from us, with independent thought, affection and voli-
tion. The fact is, that our author confounds conditions and
causes. Certain conditions are found necessary to certain effects ;
therefore^ he reasons, they are the efficient cause of them. This
is just such a mistake as it would be to attribute a telegram to
the wires, instead of to the operator at the end of them."

WilHam Hewitt, of whom we may say, as Coleridge said of
Baxter (another Spiritualist), " I could almost as soon doubt the
gospel verity as his veracity," in a letter published in 1862, and

• Professor Hare testified to a message having been sent by a supposed spirit, from
a circle at Cape May, to one in Philadelphia, and an answer, giving assurance of actual
communication, having been returned in half an hour. The Rev. J. B. Ferguson, of
Tennessee, testifies to having heard native Americans, who never knew a word of Ger-
man, discourse for hours in that tongue in the presence of native Germans, who pro-
nounced their addresses pure specimens of the power of their language. Facts of the
same sort without number could be given.

REMARKS OF WILLIAM HOWITT. 25!

commenting on the odic theory of the Rev. Mr. Mahan and
others, writes as follows : —

" They who ascribe the powers exercised by spiritual agency to
odic force, betray an equal ignorance of the real properties of
that force, and of the present status and facts of Spiritualism.
Search through Reichenbach's essay on this force, and you will
find no trace of a reasoning power in it. He ascribes no such
properties to it. He says it throws a flame in the dark, visible
to sensitive persons, such as the Spiritualists call mediums ; that
this flame is thrown from magnets of great power, from crystals,
from the light of the sun, &c. That by passes made with mag-
nets, or crystals, or by water impregnated with the sun*s rays,
certain sensations, agreeable or disagreeable, as the power is
applied, are induced, but not a trace of any reasoning in this
power, of any revelation of facts, of any pictorial vision, of any
faculty of prognostication. It cannot tell you what will take
place to-morrow, much less at the Antipodes, or in the spiritual
world. But spirits do all this, and more. It does not attract
iron, or other physical substances, which, as far as iron goes, its
cognate, magnetism, does. But spirits lift iron, or any other
body of very great weight, and not in one direction only, but
carry them about from place to place. Spirits lift heavy tables :
I have seen dining-tables, capable of accommodating more than
a dozen people, lifted quite from the ground. Spirits play on all
musical instruments : they can carry about hand-bells, and ring
them in the aih as I have seen them. The music which they
produce is often exquisite. Spirits will draw or write directly
upon paper laid for them in the middle of the floor, or, indirectly,
through the hands of people who never took a lesson, and never
could draw. I am one of them,

"These are things which are not only going on in England,
and amongst my own friends every day, but have been going on
for these forty years; ten years in America, and thirty before
that in Germany. But, in America, the wide diffusion and
constant repetition of these phenomena have convinced some
millions of people, and some of them the first men of scientific

252

PLANCHETTE.

and legal ability in the country. Those persons have not be-
lieved on mere hearsay, or mere hocus-pocus and delusion, but
upon the familiar evidence of facts; and, as I have, observed,
for thirty years before that, in Germany there existed a consider-
able body of the most eminent philosophers, poets, and scientific
men, familiar with most of these things. Amongst these no
less a man than Emanuel Kant; and also G6rres, Ennemoser,
Eschenmayer, Werner, Schubert, Jung Stilling, Kerner; and,
pre-eminent amongst women, Mrs. HaufF*^, the Seeress of Pre-
vorst, who professed, not merely to have spiritual communica-
tions, but to see and converse daily with spirits ; and she gave
continual proofs of it, as any one may see who reads her story.

" Now it is useless to tell us that the odic force, acting some-
how mysteriously on the brain, can produce these results. It
cannot enable people to draw, and write, and play exquisite
music, who have no such power or knowledge in their brains ;
for on the old principle ex nihilo nihil fit, no such things being
in, no such things can come out. It cannot come from other
brains, for there are often no other brains present. If it could
do such things, it would be spirit, endowed with volition, skill,
and knowledge; and there would be an end of the dispute. The
condition, therefore, of those who ascribe these powers to odic
force, is that of one ascribing the telegraphic message to the
wire, and not to the man at the end of it. Odic force may be
the wire ; for spiritual communications are, and ever have been,
made through and under certain laws, as all God's works always
are: but it certainly is not the intelligence at the end of
it. . . .

" Whilst the odists and automatists speculate about an action
on the brain, we cut the matter short, and say, There stand the
spirits themselves, seen, heard, felt, and conversed with.

"More than six years ago I began to examine the phenomena
of Spiritualism. I did not go to paid nor even to public me-
diums. I sat down at my own table with members of my own
family, or with friends, persons of high character, and serious
as myself in the inquiry. I saw tables moved, rocked to and

WILLIAM HOWITT's REMARKS.

fro, and raised repeatedly into the air. ... I heard the raps ;
sometimes a hundred at once, in every imaginable part of the
table, in all keys, and of various degrees of loudness. I exam-
ined the phenomena thoroughly. . . . Silly, but playful, spirits,
came frequently. ... I heard accordions play wonderful music
as they were held in one hand, often by a person who could not
play at all. I heard and saw hand-bells carried about the room
in the air; put first into one person's hand and then into
another's; taken away again by a strong pull, though you could
not see the hand touching them. I saw dining and drawing
room tables of great weight, not only raised into the air, but
when placed . in a particular direction, perseveringly remove
themselves, and place themselves quite differently. I saw other
tables answer questions as they stood in the air, by moving up
and down with a marvellous softness. I heard sometimes blows,
apparently enough to split the table, when no one could have
struck them without observation ; and I breathed perfumes the
most delicate. I saw light stream from the fingers of persons
on the table, or while mesmerizing some one. As for commu-
nications professedly from spirits, they were of daily occurrence,
and often wonderful. Our previous theological opinions were
resisted and condemned, when I and my wife were alone. This,
therefore, could be no automatic action of our own brains, far
less of the brains of others, for they were not there. We held
philosophical Unitarian opinions; but, when thus alone, the
communications condemned them, and asserted the Divinity
and Godhead of our Saviour. When we put questions of a
religious nature to the spirits, they directed us to put all such
questions to the Divine Spirit alone. ...

"Many persons that we know, draw, paint, or write under
spiritual agency, and without any effort or action of their own
minds whatever, some of them having never learned to draw.
Several of my family drew and wrote. I wrote a whole volume
without any action of my own mind, the process being purely
mechanical on my part. A series of drawings in circles, filled
up with patterns, every one different from the other, were given

PLANCHETTE.

through my hand, one each evening : the circles were struck off
as correctly as Giotto or a pair of compasses could have done
them ; yet they were made simply with a pencil. Artists who
saw them were astonished, and, as is generally the case in such
matters, suggested that some ne\V faculty was developed in me ;
when, lo ! the power was entirely taken away, as if to show that
it did not belong to fue. The drawings, however, remain ; but I
coufd not copy one of them in the same way if my life depended
on it. A member of my family drew very extraordinary and
beautiful things, often with written explanations, but exactly in
the same mechanical, involuntary manner. In fact, most of
these drawings are accompanied by explanations spiritually
given, showing that every line is full of meaning.

"I may add that I have never visited paid mediums; but I
have seen most of the phenomena exhibited through Mr. Home,
Mr. Squire, and others. / /tave seen spirit-hands moving about ;
I have felt them again and again. I have seen writing done by
spirits^ by laying a pencil and paper in the middle of the floor ^
and very good sense written too. I have heard things an-
nounced as about to come to pass ; and they have come to pass,
though appearing very improbable at the moment. I have seen
persons very often, in clairvoyant trances, entering into com-
munication with the dead, of whom they have known nothing,
and giving those who had known them the most living descrip-
tion of them, as well as messages from them. . . .

*' Now it is idle talking of odic force in the face of facts like
these, which are occurring all over America, and in various
parts of Europe, and which accord with the attestations of men
of the highest character in all ages and nations. In Greece,
Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and numbers of others asserted
this spirit-action; in Rome, India, Egypt, Scandinavia, and
aboriginal America, as well as in Judea and amongst the most
eminent Fathers of the Church. The leading minds of every
age but this have but one voice on the subject.

"It is the last, vain clutching at shadows to avoid coming to
the substance, which makes those educated in the anti-spiritual

REV. C. BRECHER ON THE PHENOMENA. 255

theories of the past century, seize so eagerly on the odic force as
their forlorn hope. It will be torn by advancing truth from
their grasp. The cry that all is imagination is gone 'already :
odic force is the present stage, and it must go too.

" And here I could give you a whole volume of the remark-
able and even startling revelations made by our own departed
friends at our own evening table ; those friends coming at wholly
unexpected times, and bringing messages of the most 'vital
importance, — carrying them on from period td period, some-
times at intervals of years, into a perfect history. But these
things are too sacred for the public eye. All Spiritualists have
them ; and they are hoarded amongst the treasures which are the
wealth of the affections, and the links of assurance with the
world of the hereafter.

** Now, I ask, what right have we, or has any one, to reject
the perpetual, uniform, and voluntary assertions of the spirits ;
to tell them that they lie, and are not spirits, but merely od, or
some such blind and incompetent force ? Nothing but the hard-
ness and deadness of that anti-spiritual education, which has
been growing harder and more unspiritual ever since the Ref-
ormation, could lead men to such absurdity. Protestantism, to
destroy faith in Popish miracles, went, as is always the case, too
far in its re-action, and, not content with levelling the abuses,
proceeded to annihilate faith in the supernatural altogether."

The Rev. Charles Beecher, in his able review of the apneu-
matic theories, says, "That mind, separating itself partially
from the body, even during this life, should be able to energize
at a distance, though mysterious, is not incredible. Cicero
recognizes it. Jamblichus builds on it. It is easy to conceive
a law by which it should be. But to say that brain can push a
door open at a distance, project odic spectra, visible and audi-
ble to distant observers, perform on distant musical instru-
ments; and, in short, do whatever the person would do, if
physically present; or that every particle of the body is a minia-
ture of the whole ; and that these, constantly exhaling, remain
for years, and coming in contact with sensitive brains, produce

PLANCH

through my hand, one each eveni:
as correctly as Giotto or a pair oi
them; yet they were made simply Wi
saw them were astonished, and, as
matters, suggested that some new lu».kM
when, lo! the power was entirely takc.<
it did not belong to fftc. The drawin^,
could not copy one of them in the sam
on it. A member of my family drew
beautiful things, often with written ex;
the same mechanical, involuntary mn.
these drawings are accompanied by
given, showing that every line is full r-

"I may add that I have never visiter!
have seen most of the phenomena exhibib-
Mr. Squire, and others. I Aave seen spirit-
I have felt them again and again. I hav
spirits^ by laying a pencil and paper in tk^
and very good sense written too. I hav
nounced as about to come to pass ; and the
though appearing very improbable at the n.
persons very often, in clairvoyant tranci;::
munication with the dead, of whom they \
and giving those who had known them the
tion of them, as well as messages from thei

" Now it is idle talking of odic force in
these, which are occurring all over Ame:-
parts of Europe, and which accord with the
of the highest character in all ages and n-'
Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and numbers *
this spirit-action; in Rome, India, Egypt,
aboriginal America, as well as in Judea and
eminent Fathers of the Church. The leadi.
age but this have but one voice on the sub

'*It is the last, vain clutching at shadows l«
the substance, which makes those educated iz.

REV. C. BEECHKR ON THE PHENOMENA. 257

Take, for example, the instance given by Cicero, as a favorite
with the Stoics : Two Arcadians stopped at Megara, one at an
inn, the other at a friend's. At midnight, the former appeared
to the latter, asking help ; for the innkeeper was about to murder
him. Roused in affright, the latter thought it a dream, and
again slept. His friend again appeared, asking him, as he had
not come to him alive, to avenge him dead, as the innkeepei*
had now slain him, and concealed his body in a cart under dirt.
In the morning he met the cart as directed, found the corpse,
and the innkeeper was executed.

" Here, if it be admitted," says Mr. Beecher, ** that the soul
appeared at a distance from the body before death, how can it
be denied that it did the same after?

"Furthermore, if the soul do, after death, come in contact
with the spirit throngs that environ us, how deny that it does
the same when severed from the body before death ?

"How resist the firm persuasion of Gilbert Tennent, and
others, that he did actually converse with spirits ? Why should
not a sleep, so deep as to be like death, produce in part death's
results, in introducing the spirit to scenes behind the veil?

"Is there no weight in the impressive declaration of the
almost dying Mrs. Hauff^, that while all sorts of ocular illu-
sions passed before her eyes, yet * was impossible to express
how entirely different these ocular illusions were to the real dis-
cerning of spirits ; and she only wished other people were in a
condition to compare these two kinds of perception with one
another^ both of which were equally distinct from our ordinary
perception', and also from that of the second sight. ^

"Yet if such converse with the dead be admitted, in even
one well-authenticated instance, the whole apneumatic argu-
ment falls. With all the gross consequences, then, of the cere-
oral hypothesis, it is the only alternative.

" If, then, such difficulties embarrass the apneumatic hjrpothe-
sis, why not adopt the pneumatic? It is an admitted principle
of science, that that theory is preferable which accounts most
naturally for all the facts known. The pneumatic theory ac-

PLANCHBTTB.

counts for all facts alleged by the other theories as well as either
of them; for some, better; and for many, which they cannot
account for at all without absurdity. '

" One of the facts most relied on by the apneumatic argument
is the misspelling, which, it is asserted, always follows the
habit of the medium. Such, however, is not the fact. Cases
are on record of misspelled communications coming throug^h
mediums who could spell correctly, much to their chag^n.
But even if the fact were, as claimed, it might be accounted for,
either by supposing that illiterate mediums attracted illiterate
spirits, or by supposing that spirits, in order to communicate,
are obliged partially to incarnate themselves in the body of the
medium, and to take on, in part, its organic and mental habits.

So, also, of the influence of drugs, manipulations, diseases.
The pneumatic theory is, that as the soul may by these means
be assisted, or disabled, in the use of its own brain, so disem-
bodied spirits may, in the use of an invaded brain. When the
odyllic conditions are by these means prepared, the spirit can
insinuate itself; when they are by these means destroyed, it is
compelled to forego its hold ; so in regard to nervous epidemics.
The theory is, that these may exist without the agency of disem-
bodied spirits; but that when they exist, developing proper
odyllic conditions, spirits may be expected to take advantage of
them. Hence, to find cases of nervous epidemics, where no
indications of spiritual agency are apparent, proves nothing,
except that the odyllic conditions were not favorable.

" While, then, the pneumatic hypothesis accounts for all the
facts adduced by the other theories, as well as they, it also
accounts naturally for other facts by which they are embar-
rassed. It is, therefore, probably the true hypothesis. And
before rejecting it, let that saying of Isaac Taylor's be well
pondered, that we ought not to reject the almost universal
belief of occasional supernatural interference, till we can prove
an impossibility, * An absolute skepticism on this subject can be
maintained only by the aid of Hume's oft-repeated sophism,
that no testimony can establish an alleged fact which is at vari-

REV. C. BEECHER ON THE PHENOMENA. 359

ance with common experience; for it must not be denied that
some few instances of the sort alluded to rest upon testimony,
in itself, thoroughly unimpeachable; nor is the import of the
evidence in these cases at all touched by the now well-under-
stood doctrine concerning spectral illusions.'

** Now the apneumatic argument virtually implies an imfossi-
bility of establishing the reality of spiritual communication by
any amount of evidence. Suppose a departed spirit, the wife
of Oberlin,* for example, were permitted to attempt to converse
with her husband, — not to establish a new revelation, not to
display divine power, but merely to exercise such potentiality
as might pertain to a disembodied spirit, for her own and her
husband's edification and satisfaction. How could she do it, in
the face of the apneumatic theories under consideration ? She
speaks to him, moves his furniture, touches his dress, his per-
son, — all automatic action of some brain en rapport with that
locality! She sings, plays the guitar or piano, takes a pencil
and writes, and he sees the pencil in free space tracing his wife's
autograph, — automatic still I She shows him a cloudy hand ;
nay, a luminous form, and smiles and speaks as when in life ;
that is, an optical illusion, or hallucination, or a particle exhaled
from her body has impinged on his sensitive brain, and created
a subjective vision. She communicates facts, past, present, and
future, beyond the scope of his knowledge; that might be clair-
voyance or cerebral sensing. Alas! then, what could she do
more? She must retire baffled, and complaining that he had
become so scientific that all communication with him was
impossible.

But if the denial of the pneumatic hypothesis be unphilo-
sophical, it is no less unscriptural."

• The philanthropic Oberlin (1735-1806) was a Spiritualist, and claimed to have fre-
quent interview's with the spirit of his departed wife. When asked how he could dis-
tinguish his wife's appearance from dreams, he said to his inquirers, " How can you
d.stnguish one color from another?" He told them that they might as well try to
persuade h'm it was not a table at which they sat, as that he did not receive these visits
irom his wife. At the same time, Oberlin was remarkably free from any trace of mys-
Hcism or fimaticism. He was, in the best sense of the word, a practical man.

26o

PLANCHBTTB.

In a review of Faraday's exploded argument against the
spiritual phenomena, Mr. Isaac Rehn remarks as follows : The
doctrine of the Correlation and Conservation of Forcep is'based
on the indestructibility of matter and force, or, as by some
stated, on the indestructibility of matter and the persistence of
force. From this it is argued that all forms, however diversi-
fied, are but the re-appearance of the primitive atoms of elemen-
tary matter in new shapes ; and, analogous to this, the powers
of matter are but the re-appearance of the stored forces of the
universe, as they are translated into heat, electricity, chemical
affinity, gravity, light, vitality, mechanical force, &c. Accord-
ing to this theory, wherever mechanical force is expended, the
given amount of this force must quantitatively appear as some
other form of force ; it may be heat or light, or both, or in some
other form of force than either ; but yet, in whatever form or
forms it may appear, it must be quantitatively the total of the ini-
tial force, however much it may differ qualitatively from that,
and can be no more and no less.

**It is still further urged that the varied forms of matter and
force, as they affect the transformations in the world, are also
the efficient and only powers through and by which all vital
phenomena are produced, these vital phenomena being inter-
preted in that large sense which includes all intellectual or other
power, by whatever names called. Now, it is another postulate
of the doctrine of the correlation of the forces that every form
of force made to appear, may also be made to appear in any-
other given form of force. Thus, if heat is made to appear as
electricity, electricity may, in turn, be made to appear again as
heat; and so on through the chapter.

" The point sought to be made against the spiritual theory is,
that, under the doctrine of the correlation of the forces, vitality,
or vital force, is the re-appearance of some other form of force.
According to the law, it may also be made to appear as the ini-
tial force or forces engaged in its production, and so can have
no continuity of existence beyond the physical duration of the
present life ; and we are referred to the fact, as a confirmation

CORRELATION OF FORCES.

261

of this, that, in the retrograde decompositions of the organic
compounds of high chemical formulae back to the binary states
of matter, all the forces appear in the putrefactive chemical
changes of decomposition. And if spirit^ therefore, exists in
man, it, too, must be but a form of force ; a translation of some
other force which, in its turn, shall also be translated, and,
therefore, cease to be as spirit.

" It presumes all iotcQs physical, and in no state can they ever
appear in which they may not re-assume the initial form ; that
is to say, that if all the world, its furniture and people, were,
and are, the evolutions of transformed nebulae, and the forces
thereof, then they may, by the law, be nebulae again.

But to the point : If it be maintained, as it has been by some,
that ' the forces are indestructible, convertible, imponderable ob^
/ects,* it is not yet settled Aow many such forces there are. Or,
if it be assumed that all forms of force are but the translation of
one primal force, it is no better settled whether there are not
permanent residuary forms, not convertible by any knowledge we
possess, or that all force \&,per se, physical, and that there can be
no force but such as appears in transformations of matter, or in
the phenomena of heat, electricity, gravity, &c. These points,
I say, are not by any means settled ; and, until they are, it is but
begging the whole argument to declare all spiritual phenomena
impossible in view of them.

** The whole argument might, therefore, be rested here, since
it is the business of those who urge the argument, founded on
the forces, against us, to show in what way they can demonstrate
by the ' rigid test of fact and experiment,* that all phenomena
are resultant experimentally and logically from the physical
forces.

"We simply deny that such demonstration has ever been
made, or that even the vital force has by any such means been
made to appear as a translation of the other forces. The most
that can be said upon this point is, that where vital force exists,
there the other forces are brought into play, and this nobody
pretends to deny. We may alto admit that vital force nowhere

263

PLANCHETTE.

appears in the absence of the others ; and Mr. Faraday, or any-
body else, is welcome to all the use that can be made of this ad-
mission.

" But who ever heard of consciousness being translated into
heat, gravity, mechanical force, &c. ? Where are the demonstra-
tions that the treasury of the memory, with the thousand inci-
dents which make up the record of our experience, and give us
the incontestable proof of personal, individual existence is con-
vertible into electricity or chemical affinity? For, if the doctrine
of the correlation of forces is to be brought against us, we have
a right to insist upon the terms upon which its demonstrations
are had, which are, in brief, that any form of force correlated to
another form, is susceptible of translation forward and backward,
at the will of the demonstrator. With heat, electricity, chemical
affinity, mechanical power, and magnetism, this may be done.
With the affections, memory, consciousness, intelligence, and
vitality, it has not been done, and, in all probability, never will •
be done. Until this latter has been accomplished demonstra-
tively, our Spiritualism is in no danger of annihilation from
arguments founded on the correlation of forces, any more than
from damage by the other futile arguments of the learned Pro-
fessor Faraday."

A psychological theory, for which the writer does not claim
entire originality, but which he states with unexampled clear-
ness, is that contained in a little volume published by Triibner &
Co., London (1868), and entitled " Chapters on Man; with the
Outlines of a Science of Comparative Psychology. By C. Stani-
land Wake, Fellow of the Anthropological Society of London."
Though the theory is not based to any extent on the recent sur-
prising phenomena of Spiritualism, the writer, by a course of
scientific reasoning, arrives at results not inconsistent with the
great fact of spirit existence, and which accord with the teach-
ings of St. Paul, who, it is contended, distinguishes between the
soul, or psyche, and the spirit, or pneuma, of man.

According to Mr. Wake, the principle of being on which man*8
superior mental development depends, is the spirit of reflection.

MR. wake's psychology.

263

or simply, as distinguished from the soul essence, or psycke, the
spirit, or fneutna. '*It is bj the addition of such a spiritual
agent we can alone account for the superior phenomena of the
human mental life. Founded, as those phenomena are, in the
simple sensational perceptions which the lower animals also
possess, we see in them the gradual develdpment of a perception
so different in its objects as to be necessarily due to the activity
of a superior principle of being. The final result of this per-
ception is the knowledge of the intuitions of truth, which are
the very life of the soul essence; a knowledge which requires
the operation of a spiritual principle existing beyond the soul,
although intimately connected with it. Having no such exter-
nal principle of spiritual activity, the lower animals can never
obtain any knowledge of the soul's intuitions, or of those gen-
eral truths which are the expression of them in relation to ex-
ternal nature.

It is thus that the brute creatures are the mere instruments
of the soul's activity, operating through the bodily organism ;
whilst man, having discovered the intuitions which are thus ac-
tive, realizes them, and makes them instruments for his advance-
ment in knowledge, and for the subjection of the forces of nature
to his own purposes.

** The relation between the soul and spiritual essences, or be-
tween t\i^ psyche and pneuma, is clearly seen from the nature of
the spiritual activity, which leads, not to any change of mental
operations, but merely to the improvement of thought objectiv-
ity. The soul can of itself perceive only the individual objects
presented to the eye ; but when joined to the spirit, it takes cog-
nizance, not only of the ever-varying phenomena of nature, but
also of the qualities of objects on which the changes in such
phenomena depend, and even creates those symbols which, as
objects of thought, give it so increased a range and activity.
The spirit, having to do only with the object, and not with the
thought itself, may be classed with the bodily eye, as an instru-
ment of soul vision, — the one giving perception of the mate-
rial forma of nature, the other of its spiritual forces ; and in

264

PLANCHBTTE.

this relation, although having a much enlarged objectivity, It
may be identified with that faculty of reflection which, accord-
ing to Locke, is a chief source of our ideas.

" As, however, the soul essence, or psyche, is indebted to it»
union with the spirit, or pneutna, for all its actual knowledge,
both of external nature and of its own being, the spirit is entitled
to claim a higher nature than that of the soul essence to which
it is joined ; and it must be recognized as the true principle of
spiritual life, although not the actual source of beinff,

"That the spiritual life, like the soul activity, has its several
phases or stages of development, is evident from the phenomena
observable in the mental life of the child, of the woman, and of
the man.

** The child, in its ceaseless inquiries, shows the first unfolding
of the spiritual perception ; but that perception being as yet im-
perfect in its operation, the child is limited in its activity to the
imitation which is the result of simple thought.

" In the woman, we see the activity of the spiritual principle,
in combination with that of the soul essence, in an intuitive re-
cognition of modes of action, without the actual perception of
the qualities on which their value depends, which is necessary to
the generalizations of reason. We see here the activity of the
instinctive soul, vivified by contact with the spiritual principle,
resulting in that almost intuitive perception of simple relation,
the possession of which by woman is her peculiar distinction.

" In man, on the other hand, instinct giving place to reason as
the stimulating principle of action, the spiritual perception is
employed in supplying objects of thought for the activity of the
mind ; the final result being the pure reasoning, which is the pe-
culiar attribute of man. In genius, we have the crowning glory
of man's mental development; the intuitive operation of the
emotional soul essence being so perfectly combined with the
keen perception of the reflective spirit, that reason itself becomes
intuitive, and the mind operates by a process of spiritual in-
stinct." . . .

As to the questions of moral responsibility and immortality.

SOULS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 265

Mr. Wake thinks it cannot be denied that the soul is the re-
sponsible, immortal portion of man's being. As the emotional,
thinking, and willing essence, it is the real principle of being,
and that which performs, through the physical organism, those
actions to which moral responsibility has relation. But the soul
is responsible for these actions only because it has a knowledge
of their nature as being good or evil. This knowledge depends,
however, on the activity of the spiritual perceptional on which the
whole special intellectual development of man is founded, and
of which conscience itself, the test of responsibility, is one of
the fruits.

As the lower animals have not the spirit, or pneuma, they can
have no knowledge of the nature of actions as being in them-
selves good or evil ; and, therefore, they are not responsible creat-
ures. The question of brute immortality can receive a similar
solution. As the soul, or psyehe, is the principle of being, ii
must be the soul which is immortal. The lower animals, there-
fore, have within themselves the principle of eternal existence.
We cannot believe that any substance, either material or spirit-
ual, can be annihilated; and, therefore, the brute soul, after
death, must continue to exist.

By immortality, however, is usually understood eternal exist'
ence in a state of separate identity. This state does not depend
on the possession of the soul essence, or psyche, but on that of
the higher spirit, or pneuma, the activity of which can alone give
the self-consciousness on which, apart from the bodily organism,
separate identity is itself dependent. The brute soul, therefore,
according to Mr. Wake, must exist eternally, but not in a sfpa-
ra^e state.

When, however, it is asked, " In what state, then, does the
animal soul exist after death ? " the only answer which can be
given is, thai ii must return to the great source of being from
which the soul first had its origin. As matter is one and eternal,
although its grosser forms are ever changing, so it is with the
soul essence, whose phenomenal forms, numberless as those of
matter, are equally changeful, but which in its substance ever

266

PLANCHBTTB.

continues one and unchangeable. The noble privilege of man,
however, is to be individualized as a distinct and immortal spir-
itual existence.

The tendency of modern scientific thought is to correlate all
the phenomena of nature as the manifestations of one simple
energy, of which the inorganic and the organic are but more or
less complex phases. The professed advocates of the doctrine
of material development ultimately reduce all things to an eter-
nally existing and infinitely extended matter, of which force is
the phenomenal activity.

" Such would appear to be the conclusion to which the hypoth-
esis of Mr. Darwin tends. Stated in the words of Professor
Huxley, it is, * Given the existence of organic matter, its ten-
dency to transmit properties, and its tendency accordingly to
vary ; and, lastly, given the conditions of existence by which or-
ganic matter is surrounded, — these put together are the causes
of the present and the past conditions of organic nature.'

"The existence of matter in an organized form is here as-
sumed; but from Professor Huxley's supposition, that in fifty
years* time, science will be able * to produce the conditions requi-
site to the origination of life,' we are justified in considering
that * organization ' is the accident, while the existence of mat-
ter in its simple, inorganic form, is the only fundamental re-
quirement. This is, moreover, confirmed by the assertion of a
late writer, Mr. David Page, the most recent advocate of the
development hypothesis, that man, like the animal, springs from
inorganic elements.

"If we turn to the positive philosophy, we see that it has the
same material basis. Mr. Lewes, while affirming that there, is
no real distinction between vital and psychical phenomena, the
latter being themselves vital, defines vitality as *the abstract
designation of certain special properties manifested by matter
under certain special conditions.' We have here the same funda-
mental idea as that on which the hypothesis of Mr. Darwin re-
poses. Mr. Lewes adds, * Life is known only in dependence on
substance : its activity is accelerated or retarded according to the

NON-PERCEPTIBILITY OF SPIRIT.

267

conditions in which the elemental changes of the substance are
facilitated or impeded ; and it vanishes with the disintegration of
the substance.' "

This is the necessary conclusion of materialism.

It is apparent that if this conclusion were established, it would
furnish an insuperable objection to the spiritual theory as to
man's nature, enforced by Mr. Wake. He, therefore, proceeds to
examine the grounds on which the materialistic argument is
based. No objection, he contends, can be made to the existence
of spirit on the ground that it is not capable of direct proof.
** Positive science allows the existence of matter in so attenuated
a condition, that it can be known only by the effects of its mo-
tion, and on the * disintegration of the substance ' which attends
the destruction of life: the substance itself still, remains, al-
though it -may take* a form which cannot be recognized. The
mere * non-perceptibility ' of spirit is, therefore^ no proof of its
non-existence. But, further, supposing the animal organism
possesses such a principle of being as this, its real life may con-
tinue, notwithstanding the disintegration of the bodily sub-
stance, without its existence being perceived. It is extremely
probable that the ether can be rendered knowable to us, under
the conditions of the present life, only by virtue of its action on
the matter of the earth's atmosphere; and if, therefore, this me-
dium were removed, there would be no possibility of our guess-
• ing its existence. In like manner, the disintegration of the
bodily organism may destroy the only means by which the prin-
ciple of animal life can reveal itself to us in our present state,
except, it may be, under certain special conditions,

" Notwithstanding the fact that there is no primd facie objec-
tion to the spiritual view of life, the advocates of the material
hypothesis may still assert that materialism is quite sufficient to
account for all the phenomena of organic matter, without call-
ing in the agency of any special principle of being.

" When, however, we ask what beyond the mere fact of com-
plexity, which itself requires explanation, determines the pas-
sage of matter from the inorganic to the vegetable, and from

268

PLANCHltTTE.

thence to the animal form of organization, the positive philoso-
phy is silent. It does, indeed, declare that there is no ' essential
distinction between organic and inorganic matter,* nor jret * anjr
essential (noumenal) separation' between life and mind; but, at
the same time, it admits that it has no other object of inquiry
than that of laws. Treating solely of the laws of phenomena,
it does not concern itself with ^heir cause ; and, so far, there-
fore, as positivism is concerned, any of those phenomena may
be due to the activity of an immaterial principle, the presence
of which may be the cause of the complexity of structure that
furnishes the special conditions necessary for such phenomena,
and which can perhaps reveal itself only through matter."

The Darwinian hypothesis requires consideration, according
to Mr. Wake, only so far as it affects to derive man, equally with
both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, from a common and
single progenitor. As to the former. Professor Huxley says,
" There cannot be the slightest doubt in the world that the argu-
ment which applies to the improvement of the horse from an
earlier stock, or of ape from ape, applies to the improvement of
man from some simpler and lower stock than man."

The same argument may be used to explain the origin of the
animal from the vegetable organism. On examination, how-
ever, we find that the conclusion cannot be sustained. When it
is said that "the structural differences which separate man from
the apes are not greater than those which separate some apes
from others," we have, independently of the fact that there is no
evidence of the past or present existence of any such links
between man and the ape, as there are between ape and ape, a
statement which is not correct. This may, indeed, be proved
by Professor Huxley's own admission. He is constrained to
admit "the width of the gulf in intellectual and moral matters
which lies between man and the whole of the lower creation,"
although he explains it as the result of " variation in function "
rather than of variation in structure.

According to Professor Huxley, it is language which "consti-
tutes and makes man what he is ; " and this language depends

THE DARWINIAN HYPOTH^SIjS.

269

on «* the equalit^r of action " of the two nerves which supply the
muscles of the glottis; a change in the structure of which,
although imperceptible, might have a result which would be
" practically infinite."

But how can a change of structure, which has so marvellous
a consequence be a slight one? The fact is, that its insignifi-
cance is merely apparent ; for^ it is associated with a general
superiority and refinement of nervous structure and sensibility,
which g^ve a higher form and tone to the human organization,
being the conditions on which the special action of the nerves
connected with the muscles of the glottis altogether depend^.

** It is, however, a fundamental error to ascribe man's supe-
riority over the animal world to 'language.* The faculty of
speech is a most important instrument for the education of man's
mental faculties ; but it is merely an instrument, and one without
which man would still be vastly superior to the creatures below
him. How strange that man's civilization — and may we not
add, his responsibility and immortality? — depend wholly on
• the equality of action of the two nerves which supply the mus-
cles of the glottis ' ! Surely, the talking parrot must also have
a capacity for civilization I

"The Darwinian hypothesis, which Mr. Herbert Spencer
accepts as reducible to the * general doctrine of evolution,* gives
no satisfactory explanation of the origin of the primitive cell ;
and thus leaves unsolved the chief problem presented by organic
nature in its several phases.

** No ground is assignable, consistent with the hypothesis of
evolution, why the only wide gap in the series should be between
the highest afe and man. The only explanation which can be
given by those of its advocates who admit the possession by man
of * special endowments * — * that nature can produce a new type
without our being able to see the marks of transition* — is in
reality fatal to the hypothesis itself, seeing that the exercise of
such a power bespeaks the operation in nature of some fresh
principle of vitality.

But, secondly, it is evident that the minute modifications of

PLANCHBTTB.

function and structurei supposed, cannot result in the formation
of something fundamentally different from that which has been
thus modified. It has been shown, that it is not the possession
of speech which constitutes man's superiority over the animal
world, but the faculty of spiritual perception ; the exercise of
which underlies both human language and everj other phase
of culture by which man is distinguished. This is a power
wholly dissimilar from any the* animal world possesses ; and
no modification, therefore, of the animal organization could
evolve it.

" Reference to * a plan of ascensive development ' will not
meet the difficulty when 'new and special endowments' are
admitted ; for, according to the principle laid down by Herbert
Spencer, that * function is antecedent to structure,' those endow-
ments can exist only in response to a preceding functional ten-
dency. This principle, moreover, directly contradicts the
reasoning of Professor Huxley, that a functional difference
which is * vastly unfathomable, and truly infinite in its conse-
quences,' has arisen from a small structural change. The modi-
fication of the organism must have been preceded by that of the
function; and as the latter is itself dependent on something
which the lower animals do not possess, it is absolutely impossi-
ble that either the function or the structural differences which it
precedes can have been evolved simply out of an animal organi-
zation. . . .

"There must be an antecedent functional tendency, or there
can be no formation of organic material, much less of a spe-
cialized organism. The very fact of the existence of organisms,
so different in their vital phenomena, as the animal and the
plant, both of which are made up of the same chemical ele-
ments, proves the existence of two different fundamental tenden-
cies^ which cannot be explained by any peculiarity of combination
of those elements, since the function is antecedent to all such
combination, and directive of the form it shall take. Suppos-
ing, then, specific organized forms are accompanied by peculiar
arrangement of their chemical elements, which take the form

MR. WAKB'S argument. 271

of * physiological units/ the tendency of the primitive organic
matter, to take this arrangement, has to be accounted for ; and
it can be only by its dependence on some still more ultimate
fact.

This ultimate fact Mr. Wake finds in spirit, deity. The phe-
nomena of life in man are quite distinct from those of either
organic or mere animal vitality; and, although intimately re-
lated to, and, it may be, necessarily connected with them, the
union is one of actual addition, as by superposition of a per-
fectly fresh and independent faculty.

" The universe may be described as an infinitely extended and
eternally existing organism. The possession, however, by man
of the principles of animal and spiritual life requires the prior
existence of something analogous in nature to them from which
these principles can have been derived. There must, in fact,
according to the reasoning of the materialistic argument, be an
eternally existing principle of being, from which the soul of the
animal organism can have had its origin ; and thus must it be
to enable us to account for the existence of the higher spiritual
principle which we see in man.

But, as in phenomenal nature, we see the three discrete de-
grees of life co-existing in a certain relation, — the lower being
essential to the existence of the higher, and the higher again
giving a new direction to the activity of the lower, — we are
justified in affirming that a similar relation exists between the
several co-existing, eternal principles of being which thus
reveal themselves. These three degrees of Absolute Life can-
not be independent of each other; and, therefore, that Eternal
and Infinite Existence from which all phenomenal nature has
been evolved, must, although manifesting his activity through
a material organism, yet be essentially a spiritual being, as
possessing, not only the principle of animal vitality, but also
that of the spiritual life.

" As, however, nature is an evolution from the Divine Organ-
ism, — man being the final result of such evolution, — we must
see in man and nature a representation of God ; who, therefore,

272

PLANCHBTTB.

is not the Unknowable Existence which the hypothesis of evolu-
tion, as stated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, requires. God cannot
be unlike that which has sprung from himself, — except only so
far as he is infinite and perfect, while it is finite, and, as such,
imperfect.

Moreover, knowing man and nature, we have a concep-
tion — incomplete, because limited — of God himself; and this
conception must widen, and therefore become more nearly per-
fect with every increase of our knowledge. Hand-in-hand,
therefore, with the development of science, there should be an
ever-increasing veneration for that Being, the laws of whose
relative existence science expresses."

And here, according to the system of Mr. Wake, we have the
only ground for reconciliation between science and religion.

The argument which we have thus presented, in an abridged
form, is worthy the reader's study; and it will, we hope, call
attention to the book itself, where some omitted links will be
found supplied.

As a fitting termination to our review of the principal theories
which the phenomena have called forth, we quote from the Lron-
don " Morning-Star and Dial " the following remarks : —

"The egotism which sets up its own finite comprehension as
the test of possibility, rejects with scorn every thing alien to its
experience, or antagonistic to its preconceived ideas. It can
scarcely be necessary to urge, that such a mode of dealing with
alleged facts is not only grossly unphilosophical, but would, if
generally adopted, prove a positive barrier to the elucidation of
important truths.

" When a very large number of independent and respectable
witnesses testify that they have repeatedly seen phenomena won-
derful in their character, identical in their nature, and occurring
always under certain fixed conditions, it is obviously our duty to
sift their efVidence, in order that we may either crush an impos-
ture, dispel a delusion, or establish a new and, possibly, most
important truth.

"This is the position which the controversy with regard to

THE CONTROVERSY STATED.

Spiritualism has unquestionably assumed. In England and in
America thousands of men and women esteemed for their pietjr,
their intellectual ability, and their social worth, aver that they
have been eye-witnesses, not once, but repeatedly, of very strange
manifestations, which can scarcely be accounted for by the oper-
ation of any known natural agency.

" They tell us that they have seen heavy tables lifted up a foot^Sy
or more from the gp-ound, and held for some moments suspended \
in the air ; men raised from their chairs and floated across the y
ceiling of the apartment; accordions and guitars, held in the /
hand, played upon by unseen fingers ; bells carried about a room (
and rung at intervals by an invisible power, and passed from hand V
to hand of the quiescent circle; intelligible sentences written |
upon slates and slips of paper placed beyond the reach of any V
present; luminous hands appearing in the air, lifting articles \
from the floor and placing them upon the table ; and a host of I
other marvels, to all appearances equally beyond the grasp of
ordinary credibility.

Mr. Coleman, a gentleman whose word would be unhesitat-
ingly taken on any ordinary matter, tells us of a drawing me-
dium, who has the power of sketching perfect portraits of de-
ceased persons whom he never saw, and with regard to whose
personal appearances he had no means of forming any idea.
He relates his visit to another medium, to whom he was person-
ally unknown, who, in answer to his mental question, wrote a
communication to him from his step-son, sometime deceased,
signing it with the young man's full name, and adding his own
residence in London; and he states that he listened to some
speaking mediums, persons in their ordinary state wholly illiter-
ate, who, under what was asserted to be spiritual influence,
spoke in public for more than an hour at a time, with very re*
markable eloquence and intellectual power. He recounts an
instance, which he declares was certified to him on excellent au-
thority, in which a communication was received through a me-
dium, leading to the discovery of a lost document essential to
the success of an important lawsuit; and he recites an example

374

PU^NCHSTTB.

of an opinion obtained bj the same means, which brought to
light a new point, and put a stop to a harassing litigation.

But, putting aside all that he gives on the authoritj of others,
his narrative of his own personal experience is strange enough
to satiate the most ravenous appetite for the marvellous. At one
siauce, for example, at Boston, he states that a guitar was car-
ried rapidly about the room above the heads of those present, a
melody being accurately played upon it as it moved through the
air ; that bells were similarly floated about, ringing all the
while ; that the medium, in her arm-chair, was lifted on to the
centre of the table, from which position he himself removed her;
that his own name was pronounced in a loud voice through a
horn ; and that, when he complained of the heat of the room, a
fan was taken from a drawer and waved before him, and a tum-
bler of water was raised and placed to his lips.*

All this, no doubt, is passing strange ; and those who have
never with their own eyes seen any thing of the sort, may be
well excused for shaking their heads in doubt. It is true that
the striking singularity of some of the phenomena reported in-
duces us sometimes to forget that, if we concede the possibility
of one of them, we may without much difficulty admit that of
all. Grant that a power exists which can raise a heavy table
from the ground and hold it suspended in the air, it is clear that
the same agency may just as easily lift a man from his chair,
carry a bell, wave a fan, or play upon a guitar. The simple rap-
ping upon the table, if not fraudulently produced, is intrinsi-
cally, though not apparently, quite as marvellous as any of the
most elaborate manifestations.

. ''But these physical effects are by far the least interesting of
those which the Spiritualists allege to be of every-day occur-
rence in their circles. They complain, indeed, that the use of
the phrases, * Spirit-Rapping,' and * Table-Turning,' has tended
to give the general public a very low and inadequate idea of

* These phenomena occurred at one of the sittings at which Miss Lord was the me*
dium, and to which we introduced Mr. Odeinan, with whom we were present.

CHARACTER OF THE VOUCHERS.

the scope and object of this class of phenomena. According
to their doctrine, these strange freaks which are played with ma-
terial objects, are designed solely to arrest attention, and to con-
vince the skeptical that unseen agencies are present, capable of
holding communion with mortals; and that, this end having
been attained, the real purpose of that which they regard as a
beneficent dispensation, acquires its needful scope and comes
into full play. This purpose they hold to be the communication
from departed beings to their surviving relatives, of messages
of solace, of warning, of encouragement, and of counsel, — con-
veyed occasionally by audible voices, but much more frequently
in an alphabetic form.

"They believe that the ultimate end of these * Spiritual Mani-
festations ' is the advancement towards moral and religious per-
fection of the living through the loving ministrations of the
dead; the proximate end being the counteraction of material-
istic tendencies by the exhibition of cogent proofs of the reality
of spiritual existence.

** If the extraordinary narratives were vouched for only by
men utterly unknown, or of dubious credibility, they might
scarcely be deemed worthy of serious attention. Even then we
could scarcely avoid the reflection that the idea which consti-
tutes the postulate of the Spiritualists, so far from being novel,
has had adherents in every age and every nation. The belief in
the possibility of intercourse betweeen spirits and mortals has
found a place in almost every religious creed ever held by man ;
and pagan traditions and biblical records alike bear witness to
supernatural communion. Nor can we entirely exclude the
thought that these phenomena, if sufficiently attested to be ac-
cepted as real, would cast much light on many incidents in past
secular history, which stand greatly in need of some rational
elucidation, in place of the wholesale rejection of a mass of evi-
dence which has hitherto been our desperate expedient. But are
they so attested ? This is the first point to be settled. The prin-
cipal witnesses are literary men of note, merchants, lawyers,
physicians, and divines ; ministers of divers sects, men and wo-

2j6

PLANCHSTTB.

men of unblemished repute, artists, poets, and statesmen. Of
minor witnesses, the name is legion ; but we have no personal
knowledge of their claims to our belief. This much we know,
that in America, and in our own country, there are many whose
sanity no one doubts, whose general veracity no one would im-
peach, who aver that they have seen these strange things with
their own eyes. It remains for us to say whether we will take
their word. "

"If we stamp all those who declare that they have witnessed
these so-called * Spiritual Manifestations,' as liars, of course the
inquiry will be at an end. If, on the other hand, we are will-
ing to believe that, in the narratives which they have given us,
they have honestly recorded the impressions produced upon their
eyes and ears, we shall next have to consider to what causes
these phenomena may fairly be ascribed. Four hypotheses have
been put forward: fraud, "f'lf-delusion, the operation of some
hitherto undiscovered natural law, and spiritual agency. The
idea of fraud, as a general explanation of the manifestations,
ma}', we think, be fairly discarded. Imposture there may have
been in cases where money was to be gained ; but seeing that
many of the most striking manifestations testified to, took place
in private houses, where no paid medium was present, — this
being especially true of the intellectual communications purport-
ing to come from departed relatives, — it is difficult to believe
that those who formed the circle could have been fools enough
to practise a deliberate cheat upon themselves for no object
whatever, to say nothing of the blasphemy against the holiest
affections, which was involved in simulating a message from a
deceased parent, wife, or child.

" It is not easy to understand what invisible mechanism would
take a man out of his chair, float him round the ceiling, and
then replace him in his seat; and that must be a very knowing
apparatus for the production of raps which would spell out to
an unknown foreigner the name of his step-son, who had been
some years in the grave. But in purely private circles, — the
vast majority of those which are held, — fraud is clearly out of

VARIOUS SOLUTIONS.

277

the question. If self-delusion be the chosen explanation, then
we ought to have it explained how it happens that the same de-
lusion operates upon a dozen or more persons at the same time.
If the operation of an unknown natural law be the solution
adopted, it must be one law capable of producing all the phe-
nomena recorded ; for they appear to present themselves in very
indiscriminate order at various stances,

" It is a current, but very grave error, to suppose that the most
startling of these physical manifestations are opposed to known
natural laws. It is generally said, for example, that the lifting
of a table from the ground, — one of the commonest of the al-
leged phenomena, — is opposed to the laws of gravitation.
Clearly it is not, if an unseen force be applied to it, powerful
enough to counteract its attraction. An unseen force is no nov-
elty in nature. Life is unseen, electricity is unseen: heat is
unseen, until, by igniting matter it gives birth to flame. But
this force must be one, capable of accounting for all the effects.
It will not do to say that this phenomenon results from hys-
teria ; that, from magnetism ; the other, from thought-reading ;
a fourth, from the od force, whatever that may be.

"If the spiritual theory be resorted to, a vital point arises. Is
it a good or an evil agency? The advocates of the Satanic
theory have this great stumbling-block to get over, that the ad-
vice given in the messages communicated is said to be univer-
sally* good, the sentiments moral, and the doctrine piously
Christian ; and it can scarcely be supposed that the Author of
Evil would labor for his own discomfiture. There may be a
mixture of good and evil agencies ; then we ought to discover
how we are to discriminate between the two. For ourselves, we
express no opinion on the subject; all we wish is to see the mat-
ter fairly investigated, with a total absence of that spirit of ridi-
cule which is always offensive and proves nothing, and which is
in the present case especially out of place. With the considera-

* Not tmivenally. We have seen that we must still ity the spirits ; that they are
as various as mortals in their moral and intellectual traits.

278

PLANCHBTTB.

tion of * Cut bono * we have nothing whatever to do. The first
question to be solved is, ^Is it true, or is it not?' The second,
* Whence is it? * If the first be answered in the affirmative, then,
even should the second remain without reply, we may tranquillj
leave the rest to the good providence of God."

" Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress trees I
Who^ hopeless, lays his dead away.
Nor looks to see the brealdn]; day
Across the mournful maibles play ;
Who hath not learned, in homrs of fiuth.
The truth to flesh and sense unknown.
That life is ever lord of death.
And love can never lose its own I **

CHAPTER XI.

COMMON OBJECTIONS.— TEACHINGS OF SPIRITUALISM.

*' I live ; and this living, conscious being which I am to-day» is a greater wonder to
me than it is that I should go on and on. How I camt to be astonishes me fiur mora
than how I should continue to be.** — Rtv. OrvUU Dtwy,

" I confess the awful mystery of life, and the perplexity which hangs around the ques*
tion. What it is, and what it all means. Nevertheless, I am persuaded — as per-
suaded as I can be of any thing^in this world— that the meaning is good and not
evil, — good, I trust, to the individual as well as to the whole. There is a wondrous
alchemy in time and the power of God to transmute our faults, errors, sorrows -^nay«
our sins themselves — into golden blessmgs.*' — Rev. F. W, Robertson,

TF we accept the fact that physical death does not affect the
identity of the individual, it will be a necessary inference,
that there are as many intellectual ancf moral differences among
spirits as among mortal men. In the spirit-world as well as in
this, at each step of our progress, we can only take in the
amount of truth we are organically fitted to receive and assimi-
late. There, as well as here, the saying of Locke holds good :
So mudi only as we ourselves consider and comprehend of
truth,' so much only do we possess of real and true knowl-
edge. The floating of other meiv's opinions in our brains
makes us not one jot the more knowing, though they happen to
be true. Hi^e fairy money, they turn to dust when they come
to be used."

Our emancipation from this material husk does not alter
those essentials of character which we have been born to here,
or which we have failed to modify in the series of existences
through which we may have passed. The moulding of our

PLANCHBTTE.

individuality must be our own work, mysterious as this maj
seem.

Beyond the mere fact, therefore, that spirits live and act (and
what greater fact could we ask?), the teachings of spirits are
to be received just as we receive those of fallible mortals, and
to be subjected to the test of our own spiritual and rational
powers. Pressed on by influences from all sides, we are yet to
accept or reject them, according to the light which conscience
may shed*

In regard to the vulgar notion that a spirit, on quitting his
mundane tenement of flesh, parts with his identity, and attains
at once to high spiritual knowledge and power, M. Jobard, of
Brussels, remarks, ''As well might a highway robber be looked
upon as an honest man as soon as he is out of prison ; or a
madman, after clearing the walls of an asylum, be regarded as
a sage ! There is as much difference between spirits as between
men. Every one takes with him into the next state of life his
character and his moral and scientific acquirements. Fools
here are fools there. Rogues, sensualists, tyrants, suffer from
being deprived of their selfish stimuli. Hence we are instructed
by the Holy Spirit to hold in low esteem those goods of earth,
which we cannot assimilate to ourselves, nor take with us ; but
to attend rather to spiritual and moral goods, which do follow
us, and which will serve eternally not only to delightfully
occupy us, but as steps by which we shall rise higher and
higher, on the great Jacob's ladder, into the boundless hierarchy
of spirits."

It has been truly said, that the tendency of Spiritualism is to
lift the phenomena of spiritual life out of the category of excep-
tional events into the region of divine law and order; and thus
to promote our spiritual emancipation and development. By
the light of this infant, or rather adolescent science, we now see
clearly, that ike truth of a doctrine cannot be proved by a so-
called miracle. The meaning and worth of " a miracle " — i,e, the
intervention of some intelligent, unseen agency — must rather
be tested by the effect which it is calculated to produce upon the

CAUSES OF OPPOSITION.

281

mind and heart ; and this again can only be estimated by the
devout and cultivated reason. The study of spiritual phe-
nomena thus elevates the mind above a servile submission
to mere dogmatic authority as well as above an ignorant resig-
nation of its rights and faculties before a mere " sign and
wonder."

"This emancipating tendency of the new science," says an
English writer, **is quite sufficient to account for the opposition
it has encountered at the hands of the religious world ; while
the innovating and revolutionary character of spiritual teach-
ing induces a large section of the irreligious world to regard it
with distrust and uneasiness. The weak and timid, and there-
fore false and unjust, conservatism of aristQcratic England
dreads each vfeth of free thought which tends to quicken the
seeds of regeHcration sleeping within her "bosom. It makes
many people uncomfortable to see old landmarks in religion,
morals, or metaphysict- . threatened with annihilation. They
xvfgimt^ the whole matl|iry.Jttuch as the respectable country
ge&tlemen in England fffty'ji^s ago regarded Methodism. If
a 'man turned Methodist, it*M8 equivalent to his becoming a
■■■■Lj^Mttsptwineri^ social <MflBM sind time-honored
^^^^^^H^Ht!^. Th6 ease is "^HIHf ^^^^ to-day; and,
^^^^^^^^Bttitict df setf-preservati9n^ne man of mere mate-
^IP^HH^HimEi and hebdomadal religion, if he has any at all,
i^^efglHiSoE Spiritualism a disturber of his peace. This impor-
tunate proi&iity of uni-ren realities calls for a re-adjustment of
» his ttagnaut ideas ; and it makes him tremble for the safety of the
\ 'reserved fieAt,' to which he looked forward in the other world,

and ako of hk reputtttfon as an intellectual aristocrat in this.
I "Such A fear \% by no means a groundless one; for who can
measiirfe the Snfliience which this despised Spiritualism is exer-
dfting ^ a £co«e j;»f wttffi-out ologies and ismsf Its negative
efTacts thos^^j^it d^ious at present. It is a great truth,
%htch tiot y^^^mi a dress for itself, or elaborated appro-
ttrganiEstions as outward and visible signs of its inward
and spiritual grace. It VjH^iES about in rags and tatters, and

282

PLANCHBTTS.

often in most disreputable company ; so that some moral courage
is required even to acknowledge acquaintance^ muck more to asso'
date vtith this truths in the public roads of life.

" We confess that we perfectly understand the aversion -with
which many earnest minds have been led to regard this subject.
* So far,' it is said, * from these investigations having an elevat-
ing or emancipating effect upon the mind, so-called spiritual
manifestations generally appeal to the lowest mental faculties,
while pandering to idle curiosity and a thirst for sensational
exhibitions.' There is much truth in this. And it is not enough
to make the specious and oft-repeated reply to such taunts, that
an evil an^ ^^ciuflerous, or sense-bound generation needs a sign ;
and thaCi^iie fittest for them are dancing-tables, I^ot-tying, and
..4P»lant WUmpets in dark closets, &c. A cultiva|B|inin(^CANNOT
look upon such things except as most disordenPKnd undivine ;
although they may have a spiritual origin, and, having such»
worthy the close examination of all wha would ateqiuunt them^^|
selves with the grounds of a sp^dNHi^^^^^- «f

"The higher manifestations jdp^lmdem Spiritualism are not
so obnoxious to contemptuous ^f^illicifm. . . . But thc.'^e and a
hundred other objei
the fact, that Spirii
ence on civilization

of spiritual laws. Even supposing ati iAese vari\
tions to be disorderly and vicious, wMek. I ^o not
believe, their illustrative value would be none d^^B#. «|fow
much would the world know of physiology or theHl^f healtii, .
if disease had not first necessitated the study of patholog^y ?*' m

The motto on the cover of that excellent publication, the
"London Spiritual Magazine," fairly eKp] L:>se^ thnt can be
consistently claimed as comprehended hy modern Spiritualism.
For individual idiosyncrasies and sjioculations, whether of ^
spirits or of earthly residents. Spiritualism is n9 i'ujA^ ^^sp^lk^A
sible than collective humanity is responsible for tii^£^gariett||^^|^
a drunken man or a lunatic. The following is the motto re-
ferred to: —

ontemptuous't^lipcifm. . . . But thc.'^e and a i
ectiM^^hether va]^4 or not^ do not disprove M
itS^PHps exerciuri|^ a most beneficial m£u«7
n, ijjiWading to tht diftcovery of iUustr^tUut

SPIRITUALISM A SCIEx6b.

Spiritualism is based on the cardinal fact of spirit com-
munion and influx : it is the effort to discover all truth relating
to man's spiritual nature, capacities, relations, duties, welfare,
and destiny ; and its application to a regenerate life. It recog-
nizes a continuous divine inspiration in man : it aims through a
careful, reverent studj of facts, at a knowledge of the laws and
principles which govern the occult forces of the universe ; of
the relations of spirit to matter, and of man to God and the
spiritual world. It is thus catholic and progressive, leading
to true religion as at one with the highest philosophy."

Expanding these views, the same magazine i«marks : Spirit-
ualism is a science based solely on facts : it is neither specula-
ttf^llAf^l&TicirLi]. On facts and facts alone, open to the whole
TOr!d ifrough an extensive and probably unlimited system of
inediumship, \l buildi^ up a substantial psychology on the ground
ictest logical induction. Its cardinal truth, imperishably
ished on the experiments and experiences of millions of.
,en and women, flttH||pun tries and creeds, is that of a
of spirits, and tfl|HHbiuity of the existence of indi-
^al spirit thtoufh the IpHentary eclipse of death ^ as it
e«fth fMtppearing ^fMjj^ spiritual world, and
InhmllltiMt amid the ^^^H^menting population
Along w^^WRs primal truth comes
ion of the ancient truths of Deity, revelation from
arid the open communion of man in the body
'wifh maa di^en^bndied ; with *that great multitude which no
£in curt number, of all nations and kindreds and people and
ingue*i which -.urntl r>i Tore the throne.*
That is the aud substance of Spiritualism: it is the

expiinent and practical demonstrator of continuous spiritual
belnf^i Whatever truths independent of this assert themselves,
same substantial evidences, and must show
Iprjmd central truth by their perfect har-
it."

The gen »iacter of the higher spiritual communications

of the preset., ^y is the jJ^^^a of dogmatic teaching, and the

must da TO *ai^

*^ PLANCHETTK.

assertion that it is only as we advance in virtue and in the
deeper paths of knowledge that we can attain to further light
in the science of things divine.

Whenever friend or foe, therefore, undertakes to commend or
denounce any notion, good or bad, by the introductory claim
that "Spiritualism teaches," &c., we may be pretty sure that
the phrase ought to be so amended as to read, " A certain spirit
teaches," &c.

If you ask why error and evil are allowed by Providence to
exist in the spirit-world, you might, with equal propriety, ask
why they are allowed to exist in this. We cannot reply better
than in the words of WoUaston (1724), who says, "To ask why
God permits evil, is to ask why he permits a material world, or
such a being as man is ; endowed, indeed, wtlli ^Ht iidUe faeut*
ties, but incumbered at the same time with boffly pass 30ns and

opensities. Nay: I know not whether it be not to a!?k why
permits any imperfect being; and that is^ any bcinj^ at all ;

ilich is a bold demand, and th^^luifwer to it lies perhaps too
deep for us." ^

To -ask why evil exists, may, tii Kgher ]ntelllgeacc&, bej
as irrational as it wMlB^ to as|^ uli^ # tdmg

These remarks wiirfmuTer it sup^vba^iml
refer further to that fighting witii windttiilts
writers for both the religious and th« secular pr^
when they insist on charging any eitf|iTil||iint ^
upon the "teachings of Spiritualism.'

"Spirit communications," says Mr. W. F. Jn^mieson,
take more or less of the idiosyncrasies of the mediums {kr
whom they are received. On the part of iTiteliigent spirits,
there is no claim to infallibility. They teach people to accept
nothing without adequate proof. Seven- te^iis of the alleged
spiritual phenomena may be of mun4aQe^k||^th^gh not
impostures. But one incontrovertible fiict ^^^^^^hE^^^^^^^
and communion as positively as a millioii i
since I witnessed phenomena Jiiiilp^ ct^P

REPORT ON DARK CIRCLES.

285

eluded imposition or trick of any kind. There maj be ten
thousand counterfeits, but they do not shake my confidence in
that which is genuine."

Judge Carter, of Cincinnati, complains of the deceptive
character of many of the communications. "I cannot," he
writes, "now point to a single medium — and I have known
many — and say that he or she is perfectly reliable."

To which we might reply, perfect reliability implies perfect
infallibility I and the judge must seek for that, not among me-
diums, or spirits, or angels, or archangels, but of Omniscience
alone.

The " committee on spiritual phenomena," who met at Cleve-
land, O., in 1867, report that " what at present passes for spirit
communion among the people, is a mixed, and, for the most
part, unanalyzed mass, rendering the identity of spirit presence
very uncertain." And they add, " Many, if not all, of the disor-
derly manifestations, your committee deem wholly unspiritual,
having their origin in half-controlled, diseased nerves, poor
digestion, torpid liver, and general discord of mind and body."
And they conclude, " We cannot suppose that a majority of the
phenomena under consideration are projected and directed by
spirits ; but rather that while there is abundant evidence, direct
and collateral, of spirit control, other causes enter largely into
their prodttction."

All which we can readily admit, and infer that it merely
shows that we ought to discriminate between phenomena that
may be explained by abnormal nervous action, and those which
must be referred to some other cause ; thpt would seem to be
not intended by the Author of our nature that we should sur-
render our individual reason to any authority, human or spirit-
ual ; that we should try the spirits, for they are a very mixed
set, just like human beings ; and that any implicit belief in the
infallibility of spirit communications is likely to lead to a mental
re-action quite as far from the truth as its opposite extreme.
Perhaps the tlieory, held by certain Spiritualists, that there are
no evil spirits^ .m%y have done something to color portions of

386

PLANCHBTTE.

the report of the Cleveland committee ; and perhaps they have
not yet fought their way out of the wilderness into a light
which may one day be theirs. Their sweeping and indiscrimi-
nate condemnation of the dark-circle " manifestations, and
their loose, unqualified assertion, that darkness is a condition
assumed and insisted upon by tricksters," are so contrary to the
experience of many investigators who have had as ample oppor-
tunities as they can have had to satisfy themselves on the sub-
ject, that their report does not carry the weight it deser\*es for
much in it that is true. It is signed by F. L. Wadsworth, J. S.
Loveland, E. C. Clark, and M. B. Dyott.

There is certainly nothing in the nature of the facts attested
by Spiritualists (and by many who admit the facts without the
hypothesis) to render it difficult to form a correct judgment as
to the reality of occurrences whether in light or dark circles.
Take the following instance quoted by Mr. Shorter : A distin-
guished London physician and physiologist, Dr. Wilkinson, in
an account of a siance he attended, mentions among other phe-
nomena witnessed by him, that a hand-bell, which had been
brought by one of the party, was rung by an invisible agency ;
at the same time as it moved towards himself, he says, **I
moved my fingers up its side to grasp it. When I came to the
handle, I slid my fingers on rapidly ; and now, every hand but
, 'my own being on the table, I distinctly felt the fingers, up to the
palm, of a hand holding the bell. It was a soft, warm, fleshy,
radiant, substantial hand, such as I should be glad to feel at the
extremity of the friendship of my best friends. But I had no
sooner grasped it mmentarily, than it melted away, leaving
me void, with the bell in my hand. I now held the bell tightly,
with the clapper downwards ; and while it remained perfectly
still, I could pla^inly feel fingers ringing it by the clapper. As a
point of observation, I will remark, that I should feel no more
difficulty in swearing that the member I felt was a human hand
of extraordinary life, and not Mr. Home's foot, than that the
nose of the Apollo Belvidere is not a horse's ear. I dwell
chiefly, because I can speak surely, on what happened to myself.

PALPABLE FACTS.

though everj one round the table had somewhat similar expe-
riences. The bell was carried under the table to each, and
rung in the hand of each. . . . They all felt the hand or hands,
either upon their knees or other portions of their limbs. I put
my hand down as previously, and was regularly stroked on the
back of it by a soft, palpable hand as before. Nay : I distinctly
felt the whole arm against mine, and once grasped the hand ;
but it melted, as on the first occasion. . . . While this was going
on, and for about ten minutes, more or less, my wife felt the
sleeves of her dress pulled frequently ; and, as she was sitting
with her finger-ends clasped and hands open, with palms semi-
prone upon the table, she suddenly laughed involuntarily, and
said, * Oh ! see, there is a little hand lying between mine *, and
now a larger hand has come beside it. The little hand is
smaller than any baby's, and exquisitely perfect.'"

At a subsequent stance at Mr. Rymer's house, at Ealing, he
describes a similar experience. The hand on this occasion pur-
ported (in a communication made) to be that of a deceased and
intimate friend, '^once a member of Parliament, and as much
before the public as any man in his generation." — "I said,"
continues the narrator, " * If it is really you, will you shake hands
with me?' and I put my hand under the table; and now the
same soft and capacious hand was placed in mine, and gave it a
cordial shaking. I could not help exclaiming, *This hand is
a portrait. I know it from five years' constant intercourse^
and from the daily grasp and holding of the last several
months.*" Others who were present at these siances — Mr. Ry-
mer, Mr. Coleman, and Mrs. Trolloptfflb particular — have
corroborated the testimony of this writer.

Commenting upon this testimony, Mr. Shorter remarks:
** Whatever weight may justly attach to the testimony of men
of known ability and attainments, any man of ordinai^r intelli-
gence and powers of observation is generally able to judge, in
an almost equal degree, of what Chalmers calls * plain palpable
facts ' under his own observation. Any man, for instance, who
can ' tell a hawk from a hand-saw,' can tell whether a table is

288

PLANCH ETTK.

resting on the floor, or is raised abore it; whether a man is sit-
ting in his chair, or is floating in the atmosphere ol* tlie room;
whether sounds made bj no risible agencj, and which respond
to his questions, mental or otherwise, are heard or not ; whether
a strong, heavy table, is, at his request, broken in firag^ents bj
no risible agencj, *■ in about half a minute,' or whether it re-
mains whole. These things, and such as these, which rest on
'seeing and feeling and experimenting,' are so plain and palpa-
ble that the man who could not judge of their reality might
conscientious! J saj with Dogberry, * write me down an ass.' It
is very easy to pronounce these things impossible ; to say that
they cannot be. But that which does happen ca» happen ; and
to tell people that an educated judgment would convince them
that they did not see what they saw, and did not feel what they
felt, can only furnish an illustration of that particular species
of rhetoric called &osJk. We are disciples of the Baconian phil-
osophy, and cannot subscribe to that reasoning which denies
facts when they do not square with our pre-judgments and ac-
commodate themselves to our favorite theories."

Very frivolous and pointless are such objections as the follow-
ing, brought by a critical American journal, called the "Na-
tion," against the phenomena so pregnant with meaning to
millions of investigators : —

** If the wonders of Spiritualism," says this authority, ** are
perfectly real, they are just as perfectly worthless. They prove
nothing but the powerlessness of those who execute them^
whether they be spirits or mortals."

" They move chaii|5^&c. ; but it is nowhere asserted that the
mediums move furniture half as well as day-laborers and por-
ters."

** They are unable to tell any particular person what he did
not kno^ir already."

This last objection has been so often disproved, and the narra-
tives of this volume confute it so repeatedly, that we need not
occupy any more space in considering it. Our own experience,
given on page iia of this volume, will serve as our answer.

IRRATIONAL OBJECTIONS.

289

With regard to the other objections, which are mere repeti-
tions of those brought by unreflecting persons ever since the
phenomena of 1848 were promulgated, a few considerations will
show how much weight they carry.

Why, if these wonders, even though " real," are " worthless,"
have Faraday, Brewster, Babinet, the Cambridge professors, and
many other eminent men of science, been so anxious to prove
that they are not real ?

If a phenomenon be worthless in itself, will it have no value
if it carry evidence that it is the work of a spirit ?

Yet the affirmative of this last question is the wholly heedless
and irrational position taken by this editor. Every person of
common sense will see its absurdity.

As for the objection that the mediums, or rather the forces
operating in their presence, though they may move furniture,
" cannot do it as well as day-laborers and porters," this would
seem to be a very blind attempt at jocoseness, since the whole
interest claimed for the mpvements referred to, lies in the in-
quiry, by what power are they done, not how skilfully are they
done.

And yet objections thus slight and trivial are fair specimens
of the kind of opposition which Spiritualism has encountered.
Is it surprising that it has spread and grown as rapidly as it
has?

The attempts to make Spiritualism responsible for the heresies
and vagaries of certain persons calling themselves Spiritualists,
are manifestly unjust. Accusations are often brought that Spir-
itualism teaches free love, pantheism, socialism, &c. As well
say that the Newtonian philosophy teaches these things I Spir-
itualism is no more responsible for nominal Spiritualists, than
Christianity is for nominal Christians, among which Ij^st may
be counted free-love Anabaptists, Mormons, and the brigands
of Italy.

Pythonism " is the bad name which the " ministers of the
Massachusetts Association of the New Jerusalem " (followers of
Swedenborg) give to modern Spiritualism; the name being

290

PLANCHBTTK.

deriTed, thej tell us, from the Pytkon, the mjthological serpent,
sprung from the mud after Deucalion's deluge, and which Apollo
alone was able to destroy. ** Hence the priestess of Apollo, at
Delphi, was called a Pythoness." ** Who cannot, in this mytho-
logical tradition,*' say the ministers, ** see the serpent, engend-
ered by the very lowest things of humanity," — Spiritualism, of
course, being the chief of these ** lowest things."

By ordinary persons, the supposed communications from the
spirit-world will, we think, in this nineteenth century, be re-
ceived as we receive communications through books, newspapers,
and even weekly critical journals. Various and sometimes con-
flicting as these communications are, they merely show that
spirits, like mortals, are very fallible, and often very conceited
individuals, many of them it may be, groping in a moral and
intellectual darkness denser than that which encompasses many
souls yet fettered by the flesh. Spiritualism is merely an affir-
mation of the great fact of spiritual existence. It leaves us just
where all codes and all revelations take us up ; for the authority
of a message, come whence it may, lies always in the complete-
ness of its harmony, with the laws of our being as disclosed by
the highest experiences of individuals and of the race.

Nor is Spiritualism any thing new, though never before in
human history have men been so educated and prepared to re-
ceive its phenomena in a scientific spirit, and never before has
priestcraft been so impotent to dictate terms, or to put its own
convenient construction on facts appealing so directly to the
common sense of mankind.

** The idea of the existence of spirits,'* says one of our French
collaborators (Edward de Las Graves), "and of their interven-
tion in human affairs, may be traced back to the most remote
epochs of antiquity. We find it in all the philosophies : it forms
the basis of all the religious systems of the ancients, and the
Biblical narratives are full of it. The Greeks, the Romans, the
Egyptians, the Druids, the Indians, and the Chinese had th^ir
oracles which they consulted. The Middle Ages could not bury
the idea in the funeral piles which devoured their sorcerers and

CONTRADICTIONS OP SPIRITS.

391

their witches. It has come down even to our own times, braving
all persecutions, surviving all the revolutions, physical and
moral, of humanity.

Beyond a doubt this idea, imperishable because it is true,
has often been associated with a thousand absurdities. Cupidity
and the lust of domination have often made of it a powerful
weapon, and have not feared even to disfigure, and pervert, and
play false with it in order to subject it to their caprices, their am-
bitions, or their needs. But the time has come at length when
the truth is destined to rise and glitter in all its splendor, chas-
ing pitilessly the errors which ignorance and superstition have
heaped up during the centuries."

All speech is spiritual. All communications addressed to our
moral or intellectual faculties are of spiritual origin, whether
they come from spirits incarnate or disincarnate.

Dr. William B. Potter, author of a pamphlet on the subject of
modern Spiritualism, says of the communications which he
himself has heard through mediums, that " endless contradic-
tions and absurdities are mixed up with the most exalted truths,
and the most profound philosophies. We are taught that God is
a person, that he is impersonal ; that he is omnipotent, that he
is governed by nature's laws; that every thing is God, there is
no God, that we are gods. We are taught that the soul is eter-
nal ; that it commences its existence at conception, at birth, at
maturity, at old age. That all are immortal, that some are im-
mortal, that none are immortal. That the soul is a winged
monad in the centre of the brain ; that it ge.ts tired, and goes
down into the stomach to rest; that it is material, that it is im-
material; that it is unchangeable; that it changes like the
body, that it dies with the body, that it develops the body, that
it is developed by the body, that it is human in form ; that it is
in but one place at a time, that it is in all plftces at the same
time.

** We are taught that the spirit-world is on earth, — just above
the air, — beyond the milky-way. That it has but one sphere,
three spheres, six spheres, seven spheres, thirty-six spheres, an

292

PLANCHETTB.

infinite number of spheres. That it is a real, tangible world;
that it is all a creation of the mind of the' beholder, and appears
different to different spirits. That it is inhabited by animals,
birds, &c. ; that they do not inhabit it. That it is a sea of ether ;
that it is a plain, that it has mountains, lakes, and valleys ; that
it is a belt around the earth. We are taught that spirits eat
food, — live by absorption ; live on magnetism, thoughts, love.
That they control media by will-power, by magnetism, by enter-
ing media, by st'anding by their side, by an influence beyond our
atmosphere, by permission of the Lord.

"That spirits converse by thought-reading, by oral language.
That their music is harmony of soul ; that it is instrumental and
vocal. That they live single ; in groups of nine. That they
marry without having offspring; that they have offspring by
mortals; that they have offspring by each other. That their
marriage is temporary; that it is eternal. That spirits never
live again in the flesh; that they do return, and enter infant
bodies, and live many lives in the flesh. That some are born
first in the spheres, and afterwards are born on earth in the flesh.
That the true affinity is born in the spirit-world at the same
time that the counterpart is born on earth. That all spirits are
good, that some are bad ; that all progress, that some progress,
that none progress. . . .

" That there is no high, no low, no good, no bad. That mur-
der is right, lying is right, slavery is right, adultery is right.
That whatever is, is right. That nothing we can know can in-
jure the soul, or retard its progress. That it is wrong to blame
any; that none should be punished; that man is a machine, and
not to blame for his conduct. . . . That the spirit of the tree
exists in perfect form after the tree is burnt. That monads are
God's thoughts, and go through all forms of rocks, trees, ani-
mals, and at last become men. That spirit is substance, in ab-
solute condensation ; that matter is substance, whose particles
never touch."

The reply to statements like these has been well made by Mr.
A. E. Newton, who writes as follows: "To our view, the evi-

CONTRADICTIONS OF SPIRITS.

dence of the basis-fact of modern Spiritualism — namely, • the
intelligent communication of spirits with minds in the flesh* —
does not depend at all upon either the truthfulness or the agree-
ment of their statements about any subject. Even should all
who communicate, agree in denying that there is a spiritual
world, or that any spirits exist at all, that denial would be no
proof of such non-existence ; on the contrary, it would be a very
strong corroborative evidence in favor of spirit existence, for
such testimony could not be supposed to originate in the minds
of the mediums. The testimony itself must come from mind, and
that mind must have existence. If not from the mind of the
medium, or any one in the body acting through the medium,
then it must be from a disembodied mind. The Cretans were
once declared to be * always liars ; * and yet nobody doubts that
the Cretans had existence, even though they themselves might
affirm or deny the fact. The proof of communication from the
sfirit-world depends on the evidence of mental action aside from
and beyond that of the medium, or any mind in the flesh, and not
on the agreement, wisdom, or good sense manifested in such
communications.

**But contradictions, even as to matters of fact, are often
merely apparent, rather than real, arising from mutual misun-
derstandings as to the meaning of terms, and from too narrow
and unphilosophical views of things.

"We would remind all who are perplexed with the statements
of spirits in respect to the spirit-world, that it is doubtless vastly
more extensive than earth, and hence may present a far greater
variety of objective realities, and of modes of life and thought,
than pertains to the earth-life. And, furthermore, since the
spirit-world is the world of causes, each external object must be
to the beholder just what his perceptions make it; that is, it
appears according to his power of insight as to its uses and rela-
tions. Hence the same object may appear as one thing to one
person, and as quite another thing to a person diflferently un-
folded.

" This principle is exhibited to some extent in this rudimental

294

PLANCHETTE.

sphere. For example, we have known two persons to attend
the same concert of instrumental music, — one having little or
no musical culture, the other possessing a very exquisite ear.
To the first, some of the finest compositions were for the most
part a mere jargon of inharmonious sounds which pained and
tired the ear ; while the other was by these same sounds trans-
ported to the seventh heaven of rapturous delight.

"So of objedts seen : to the child or the uncultivated clown,
that most gorgeous of spectacles, the evening sky, is a solid dome
of comparatively limited dimensions, in which are hung up a
multitude of little lamps for man's sole use ; while the astrono-
mer sees worlds on worlds filled with life and beauty, among
which this earth is but a tiny speck floating in immensity."

Lord Lytton, whose abilities in many instances we have ad-
mired, has shown, in his novel of "A Strange Story," that he
can both write a very stupid book, and venture to treat of things
with which his acquaintance is superficial and inaccurate. He
here gives no evidence that he has ever investigated the subject
of the spiritual phenomena, ancient and modern, with any pro-
fundity of research or meditation. He so mixes up the crudest
and most incongruous fancies of an imagination in search of the
sensational with fragments of genuine truth, that his book has
the effect on one of a wretched nightmare instead of a presenta-
tion of credible phenomena that can be reconciled with existing
facts.

In a letter bearing date the latter part of the year 1867, Lord
Lytton writes to Mr. Benjamin Coleman, "All the experiments
I have witnessed, if severely probed, go against the notion
that the phenomena are produced by the spirits of the dead;
and I imagine that no man, who can take care of his pockets,
would give up his property to a claimant, who could bear cross-
examination as little as some alleged spirit, who declares he is
your father or friend, and tells you where he died, and then
proceeds to talk rubbish, of which he would have been incapable
when he was alive. I can conceive no prospect of the future
worid more melancholy, than that in which Voltaires and Shake-

MATTBR AND SPIRIT.

295

speares are represented as having fallen into boobies, or, at
best, of intellects below mediocrity."

See Kerner's answer, and the answers elsewhere in this vol-
ume, to obvious objections, like these, from persons who, like
Lord Lytton, have gone but a little way in the path of investi-
gation. All inquirers, like the friend who wrote the letter on
the Rochester knockings (pa^e 34 of this volume), have to pass
through that phase of doubt at which the distinguished novelist
seems to have arrived and stopped.

Because there may be mendacious, wanton, or frivolous spir-
its, who choose to assume great names, it does not follow that
they represent the whole spirit-world, any more than Falstaff
and Pecksniff represent all humanity.

Lord Lytton says that in all controversies on this question,
he has found no clear definition of what is meant by spirit.
And yet he talks very glibly of mattery and of agencies " operat-
ing upon or through matter," as if he well knew what mat-
ter is.

But we know just as much about spirit as we do about mat-5
ter. It is true that we know nothing of the essence of spirit : it is
equally true that we know nothing of the substance or essence
of matter. But perhaps the reader will say, "We cannot see
spirit, and, therefore, we know but little about it." " Did it ever
occur to the reader," asks a scientific writer, ** that we cannot
see matter either? When we look at any object, it is not the
object, after all, that we see, but merely the image of it formed
on the retina of the eye. When I look at a house a mile distant,
the object that I really see is not a mile distant, but within the
eye. I do not see the houte at all, but I see an image of light
representing the house. Thus it appears that matter is just
as invisible as spirit. We know some of the properties and laws
of spirit, and this is precisely the extent of our knowledge of
matter."

Newton was of opinion that if sufficient pressure were put
upon the earth, it would be compressed to the size of a globe an
inch in diameter. And if to that site, why not to that of pea,

PLANCHETTK.

and from that to a grain of mustard-eeed, and from that to an
invisible particle of dust Ne¥rton virtually denied the exist-
ence of matter as substance. Nothing remains but a congeries
of laws. If the ultimate particles of matter are matkematical
pointSy* as Newton assumed, it follows that if the particles of
which the earth is composed were made to touch each other, the
whole earth would be reduced to a mathematical point. And
who can show that this hypothesis (that the laws of matter are,
in fact, all there is of matter) is not scientifically correct?**

It would seem that Providence does not mean we shall be
spared the trouble of thinking for ourselves. And so neither
mortal nor spirit comes to us with the credentials of infalli-
bility. "The commonplace character of a large portion of the
spirit communications, the extravagant and turgid character of
some, cease to perplex when we come to view them as proceed-
ing from beings lately ordinary dwellers upon earth, and retain-
ing still their earthly dispositions and ideas. True, the difficulty
remains as to why some small portion at least of these commu-
nications should not bear the impress of transcendent wisdom
and genius. The absence from them of any thing equalling,
far less surpassing, the highest products of the human mind,
argues, it must be admitted, some hinderance to intercourse with
spiritual beings of an exalted order : may we not hope to over-
come it?"t

In regard to the varied and contradictory character of the
communications, "Honestas" remarks in Human Nature,"
** As our childhood prepares us for maturer age, so our present
life mediatorially renders us fit for the enjoyment of a future
condition. But mediation implies that the characteristics of
the former condition shall be preserved, and that they aid in
bridging over the gulf that severs this life from the state here-
after. And with the preservation of our individuality, is it far-

* It was the conclusion of Faraday that matter, in its last analysis, is resolvable
into joints of force.

t Swedenborg tells ns that the communications of angels and spirits are limited by
the materials found in man's memory.

THE CHANGE MADE BY DEATH. 297

fetched to say, that the conditions which surround, sustain, and
render its continuance possible, cannot be so world-wide diflferent
in the future life as to make intercommunication between the two
states impossible ; that the physical circumstances of spirits and
of man have something akin, something in common, rendering
superable that which was once believed insuperable? . . .

"Now, in the varied character of the communications, we
have a standard given us to measure the actu'al amount of the
change which that death, that transition, into a perhaps more
subtle and elementary condition, effects. The change does not,
however, carry with it complete severance; on the contrary,
mediated by growth and development on earth, the soul is sus-
tained by a condition of material laws, Aediatorially rendered
applicable by prior growth. In a word, the state hereafter can-
not differ insuperably from that on earth.

** Spiritualism has often given offence because it has failed to
satisfy the cravings of those who desire for perfection here-
after, — a perfection, it is unreasoning, illogical, to ask for. The
varied character of the communications, so far from making
me hesitate, strengthens my belief in the reality of Spiritual-
ism ; for it brings me back from an ideal to a reality ; and in
this reality I recognize the law of gradual step-by-step progress ;
no jump and bound into something uncongenial, but a progress
into a mediatorially prepared and kindred state, in which the
individuality of the soul is maintained. This individuality
could not, however, be sustained, unless supported by the influ-
ence of great physical laws, which again co-operate and harmo-
nize with those we recognize as operative in this, to us, natural
world."

The "Banner of Light," the leading spiritual journal of
America, introduces all its messages, purporting to come from
the spirit- world, with these words of caution : " We ask the
reader to receive no doctrine put forth by spirits in these col-
umns that does not comport with his or her reason. All express
as much of truth as they perceive, — no more."

Plutarch raises the same objections to the style of the oracles

29S

PLANCHBTTB.

in his day that we raise to that of the spiritual communications
of ours. If the verses," asks one of his speakers, are really
bad, ought we to make Apollo their composer?" And the con-
clusion is, that '*the first inspiration alone comes from him,
which is, however, adapted to the nature of every prophetess."

An ingenious writer remarks, that to the reader familiar with
spiritual phenomena, it is evident even from the sneering narra-
tive of Gibbon, that the apostasy of Julian, and his intei se
enthusiasm in the cause of the fallen faith, was in trutli due to
communication with the invisible world. Spirits of departed
pagans, still clinging to their earthly creed, seem to have im-
pressed him powerfully, visiting him, and conversing with him
in the forms of the Olympian gods. "We may learn," says Gib-
bon, from his faithful friend the orator Libanius, that he lived
in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses, that
they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their
favorite hero, that they gently interrupted his slumbers by
touching his hand or his hair, that they warned him of every
impending danger, and conducted him by their infallible wis-
dom in every action of his life."

Still, notwithstanding the contradictory character of many of
the communications purporting to come from spirits, it cannot
be denied that among those that do not seem to be prompted by
mere wantonness or an insane conceit, there is a wonderful
agreement on certain important points. For example, this bet-
ter class seem to be unanimous in rejecting the notions of the
resurrection of the physical body ; the eternity of hell torments ;
and the doctrine of vicarious atonement, in the sense in which
the so-called evangelical theology teaches it.

They regard all punishment as remedial;* and the popular
belief that the discipline of man and his moral responsibility
cease at the period we call death, they denounce as a groundless
assumption, in contradiction with the whole system on which

* See a communication in the " London Pall Mall Gazette," of Nov. 9, 1866. for
much of this statement.

ALL PUNISHMBNT REMEDIAL. 299

the moral ' and physical universe is conducted. Looking back
myriads of ages, they bid us see always one slow, unbroken pro-
cess of growth and development ; and they point to the same in
the history of man as a race, and of each man as an individual.
They tell us there is no precedent in creation for any such dislo-
cation of the action of organic law as would be involved in that
sudden cessation of the operation of moral and intellectual disci-
pline, which is popularly supposed to be the result of death;
that to suppose that every person who has " faith " and some
small "good works" is instantly elevated to an eternal happi-
ness, is one of the most irrational of theories, as is likewise the
doctrine that the good are subjected to a purifying process
without any further moral responsibility; that is, without any
further real moral discipline whatsoever.

If it be asked, How is this view to be applied to the millions
in whom no moral discipline is commenced before death, this is
the reply : We perceive that in the case of those in "v^hom the
moral discipline is really begun, and is carried on to the utmost
perfection, a material portion of their existence is necessarily
passed before the commencement of the discipline.

For years we all live a purely animal existence, and are ap-
parently not a whit more like saints and sages in an embryonic
stage than are the most degraded savages of Africa. How it is
that an infancy and childhood of animalism and passion are an
organic .preparation for an intellectual and moral probation, we
cannot tell ; but there is the fact, not shocking, or distressing,
or bewildering, because we are familiar with it, and we are
cognizant of the subsequent development of the reasoning and
moral character. Just such may be the whole terrestrial exist-
ence of the savages under the tropics, or in our own fields and
cities. All analogy leads us to the supposition that it may be
simply the infancy of an existence commenced here and devel-
oped hereafter. They live and die in ignorance of their nature
and their coming destiny, like a babe that dies after a year of
sickness and misery. This ignorance is, too, in harmony with
that general law of ignorance slowly passing into knowledge,

300

PLANCHETTE.

whose operation meets us wherever we turn our eyes.' It is one
of the great mysteries of our life. " If there is a God," we are
tempted to ask, "why does he thus hide himself? And why
cannot we speak with him as we speak with one another?"
There is no answer. We do not know. But we do know that
ignorance of things g^eat and good and true is no proof that
they do not exist. The ignorance of God in the savage and the
pariah is no more a proof that he does not intend some day to
make himself known to them, than their ignorance of the law
of gravitation is a disproof of astronomical science.

Should this solution of the mystery of human existence be
thought to indicate too near an approach to the ancient doctrine
of pre-existence and metempsychosis, it can none the less be
admitted as in harmony with much of the speculation that pro-
fesses to come from spiritual sources.

As there are no acknowledged leaders of the present spiritual
movement, it is of course impossible to lay down any state-
ment of theological or religious doctrines in which Spiritualists
agree. ** Our cardinal rule of action," says Judge Edmonds, one
of the best known of the American Spiritualists, ** has been to
build up no party, create no sect, cultivate no spirit of proselyt-
ism, make no parade of faith, but let it enter your soul and
govern your life."

A convention of Spiritualists at Rochester, N.Y., September,
1868, adopted a series of resolutions which embody many of the
conclusions at which a large number have arrived ; but the con-
vention wisely put forth these resolutions as presenting the
opinions of those persons only tvko voted in the affirmative.

Spiritualism, they say, teaches, "That man has a spiritual
nature as well as a corporeal ; in other words, that the real man
is a spirit, which spirit has an organized form, composed of
sublimated material, with parts and organs corresponding to
those of the corporeal body. That man, as a spirit, is immortal.
Being found to survive that change called physical death, it may
be reasonably supposed that he will survive all future vicissi-
tudes. That there is a spiritual world, or state with its substan-

THE ROCHESTER RESOLUTIONS.

301

tial realities, objective as well as subjective. That the process
of physical death in no way essentially transforms the 'mental
constitution or the moral character of those who experience it,
else it would destroy their identity. That happiness or suffering
in the spiritual state, as in this, depends not on arbitrary decree,
or special provision, but on character, aspirations and degree
of harmonization, or personal conformity to universal and
divine law.

" Hence that the experience and attainments of this life lay the
foundation on which the next commences. That since growth,
in some degree, is the law of the human being in the present
life ; and since the process called death is, in fact, but a birth
into another condition of life, retaining all the advantages
gained in the experiences of this life, rt may be inferred that
growth, development, expansion, or progression is the endless
destiny of the human spirit. That the spiritual world is not far
off, but near around, or interblended with our present state of
existence ; and hence that we are constantly under the cogni-
zance of spiritual beings. That as individuals are passing from
the earthly to the spiritual state in all stages of mental and
moral growth, that state includes all grades of character from
the lowest to the highest.

''That, as heaven and hell, or happiness and misery, depend
on internal states rather than external surroundings, there are
as many gradations of each as there are shades of character, —
each one gravitating to his own place by natural law of affinity.
They may be divided into seven general degrees or spheres;
but these must admit of indefinite diversifications, or- ' many
mansions,' corresponding to diversified individual character, —
each individual being as happy as his character will allow him
to be.

"That communications from the spirit - world, whelher by
mental impression, inspiration, or any other mode of transmis-
sion, are not necessarily infallible truth ; but, on the contrary,
partake unavoidably of the imperfections of the minds from
which they emanate, and of the channels through which they

goa FLANCHETtE.

come ; and are, moreover, liable to misinterpretation by those
to whom they are addressed. Hence, that no inspired commu-
nication, in this or any other age (whatever claims may be, or
have been, set up as to its source), is authoritative any further
than it expresses truth to the individual consciousness, — which
last is the final standard to which all inspired or spiritual teach-
ings must be brought for judgment. That inspiration, or the
influx of ideas and promptings from the spiritual realm, is not
a miracle of a past age, but a perpetual fact,' the ceaseless
method of the divine economy for human elevation. That all
angelic and demoniac beings which have manifested them-
selves, or interposed in human affairs in the past, were simply
disembodied human spirits, in diflferent grades of advance-
ment. '

That all authentic miracles (so called) in the past, such as the
raising of the apparently dead ; the healing of the sick, by lay-
ing on of hands or other simple means ; unharmed contact with
poisons ; the movement of physical objects, without visible in-
strumentality, &c., — have been produced in harmony with
* universal laws, and hence may be repeated at any time under
suitable conditions. That the causes of all phenomena, the
sources of all life, intelligence, and love, are to be sought in
the internal, the spiritual realm, not in the external or material.
That the chain of causation leads inevitably upward or onward
to an infinite spirit, who is not only a forming principle (wis-
dom), but an affectional source (love), — thus sustaining the
^uTiX^ parental relations as father and mother to all finite intelli-
gences, who, of course, are all brethren.

"That man, as the offspring of this infinite parent, is his
highest representative on this plane of being, — the perfect man
being the most complete embodiment of the * Father's fulness'
which we can contemplate; and that each man is, or has, by
virtue of this parentage in his inmost, a germ of divine essence,
which is ever prompting to the right, and which in time will
free itself from all imperfections incident to the rudi mental x)r
earthly condition, and will triumph over all evil. That all evil

DISCIPLINE OF EVIL. 303

is disharmony, grater or less with this inmost or divine princi
pie ; and hence whatever aids man to bring his more externa
nature into subjection to, and harmony with, his interiors, —
whether it be called * Christianity,' ' Spiritualism,* or the * Har-
monial Philosophy ; * whether it recognize the * Holy Ghost,*
the Bible, or a present spiritual and celestial influx, — is a
* means of salvation * from evil."

Dr. Henry T. Childs, of Philadelphia, a medium, writes as •
follows : " Having seen and conversed with many spirits in
different conditions, the facts are as clear to me as they can be,
that the after-life and this are subject to progression, and that
not from a pure stand-point of excellence in which there are no
evil tendencies, but from whatever condition the spirit may be
in. I have yet to find a spirit who does not feel that progression
and growth are synonymous, and they ever mean a reaching
forward to something better and leaving something that is evil.
Death is nothing more than an incident in the continuous life-
line of humanity, changing the surroundings, but leaving the
interior just as it was,

"With this experience, I know therft are evil spirits; spirits*
who, like men, may delight in mischief and perverseness ; who
have not realized their own rights sufficiently to respect the
rights of others ; and my reason teaches me just what these
fads have demonstrated to me. Seeing evil all around us, I see
also the beautiful spiral pathway of progress, which is ever lead-
ing us up out of these conditions."

The following lines by Daniel Norton embody, we believe, the
views of great numbers of Spiritualists on the subject of the
ministry of evil : —

" Sin leads to pain, and pain repentance brings :

Thus sin, though evil, is a savior ;
For in its train comes knowledge of those things
To soul and body hurtful ; and the stings
Of conscience bring us wisdom. Wisdom brings

The pledge of future good behavior.
Blessed be Darkness, then 1 It bringeth light

I'rom oat the darkness, brighter glowii^.

PLANCHETTK.

Blessed be Evil ; for it briogeth Right,
As day is more e£fulgent after night ;
Blessed be Sorrow ; it begets the might.
To set life's truer current flowing."

To this doctrine it is objected by the theologians, that, as it
makes an entrance into evil necessary in order to serve as a self-
conscious return to good, it exalts evil itself into goodness ; the
• idea of sin and responsibility is destroyed, and views are intro-
duced that would prove fatal to all true morality, as they would
imply that no being can be properly educated, except through a
process of sinning.

Perhaps this i« an extreme construction to put upon the doc-
trine. If life be disciplinary, all our experiences must be
designed for our information and our good. Then comes up
the terrible problem of free agency; and from this, we shall
see, as we proceed, many great and learned men can find no
-escape except in the hypothesis of a pre -existent state of
the soul.

As a specimen of the expositions of one of the most eloquent
*of American mediums, Mr. Selden J. Finney, we give the fol-
lowing abridgment of one of his discourses. Of course it
merely expresses the views of an individual in regard to the
philosophy of modern Spiritualism ; but we quote it as mani-
festing no ordinary degree of philosophical culture and insight.
"The great, distinguishing feature of this philosophy," says
Mr. Finney, " is that it begins with the demonstration of a
transcendent spiritual nature, called the soul, within the body
of man. This it defines as an organic, spiritual entity; and
proves that it lives on, after the physical body is dead, in higher
spheres, subject to the same laws of intellectual, social, and
moral being that rule us here; though, in those higher spheres,
it has been translated into more refined conditions and rela-
tions. . . .

"It demonstrates that all angels are planet-born men and
women. It proves the unity of nature, and so shows that our
hells are kindled here by our own hands in our own breasts.

DISCOURSE OF A MEDIUM. 305

It shows that when every physical sense is paralyzed, the mind
and soul may be all the more untrammelled, — as in trance and
clairvoyance, — and can soar afar into the deeps of external
nature or hold blessed communion with spiritual intelligences.
The wonders of clairvoyance, of trance-mediumship, of inspira-
tional speaking, of table-moving, of impersonation, — in fact,
of all the great classes of mediumship, — are the external proofs
of the reality of our philosophy ; while the vast revelations that
constitute the contents of the best communications are the ideal
elements. . . .

** Even a brute can be surprised by the movement of a table
without contact of visible power; while under the inspiration
of the gifted seer and poet, the g^eat fields of eternal day break
on our rapt vision. This philosophy opens, on the one hand,
the grand questions of physiological psychology; and, on the
other, the profound questions of transcendental theology. . . .

In demonstrating the independent entity of the soul, which
can, even while in. the body, transcend the limits of sensation
and hold converse with immortals. Spiritualism destroys the
sensationalism of English philosophers, the subjective atheisih
of Spencer, and the materialism of the French encyclopedists ;
while, on the other hand, it corrects the too ideal tendencies
of Hegelianism in Germany, and holds it to account on that
middle ground of philosophy where sense and soul touch and
unite.

*^The idealism of Berkeley, which reduced all the external
world to a mere phantasm of sensation ; to a mere picture on
the nerves of the body, whose cause was for ever shut away from
our reach ; and the pantheism of Spinoza, or more especially of
his one-sided disciples, — here find their grave, in common with
that subjective idealism of Spencer, Sir William Hamilton, and
Mr. Mansel, which is of late so much in vogue. Sensationalism
has a half-truth ; idealism and pantheism have a half-truth ; but
so long as each claimed to be the only truth, all were false in a
double sense, and blind.

"The truth in each of these schools is revived, emancipated,

3o6

PLANCHETTE.

and united in the spiritual philosophy. Idealism would re-
create the external world from the depths of unaided con-
sciousness. Sensationalism would create consciousness from
the external world as a mere material force, which goes out like
any other fire in the ashes of its body. But Spiritualism, in
demonstrating the dual nature of man, in showing that we live
in two worlds at once, and are vitally related to each, having
powers that lay hold on the forces and verities of both at once,
unites in itself the truth of each, unmixed with the errors of
either.

"Does Mr. Spencer tell us that spirit is * utterly inscrutable'?
The spiritual philosophy answers, *Man is a spirit per se, and
can cognize spiritual beings of the immortal life; has done so;
has identified the persons of the departed ; your theory must be
false.' Does Mr. Mansel set * limits to thought*? The spiritual
philosophy pulls them down, and opens again the fair fields of
spiritual naturalism to the contemplation of thinkers. Does
Sir William Hamilton call the idea of God ar * revelation '? The
spiritual philosophy answers, *Yes;' but a 'revelation made
through those natural powers and faculties of the soul, which
connect us with the soul of the world, and which transcend the
physical senses, as the immortal transcends the mortal life of
man, and not by any means a supernatural revelation, made in
a book.'

"The great contest in philosophy has been and is waged
over * method.' The sensational philosophy reasons only induc-
tively ; from external facts toward their causes. Idealism reasons
only deductively from ideas which it finds in the reason, toward
their effects. But neither method can g-ive any facts or ideas to
begin with. Both facts and ideas are assumed in the outset by
both methods. Hence it is evident that neither method is alone,
or often together, full and complete. How do we find the facts
and ideas to start with, if, after all, we cannot get our facts by
induction ; for induction begins with facts as given, and cannot
proceed one inch, except on the assumption of facts from which
to reason and infer? Induction cannot set out from zero and

DISCOURSE OF A MEDIUM.

reason to entity. It must begin with some previously known
and acknowledged facts or principles. It cannot discover by
induction the original facts from which induction can alone
set out.

So with deduction : it sets out with ideas which it finds in
the mind. It cannot descend to effects from zero, any more
than induction can rise from zero to causes. Neither can origi-
nate its facts or its principles. Both are dependent for their
respective data on some power superior to either method of
reasoning. These methods are both second-hand processes;
neither is aboriginal, primary. Now, what is that power which
gives us the facts on the one side, and the principles on the
other from which to set out? Whatever it be, it is self-evidently
superior to either induction or deduction; for on its directly
given data both methods proceed. Both methods are then
secondary; both are the mere mechanics of that power which
gives the data to 'begin with. Hence reasoning is only that
process by which things and principles are accounted for and
related, but never authorized.

** There is, hence, the necessity for some power that is abo-
riginal, direct, authoritative, and supreme, implied by both
methods of reasoning. This power must, therefore, be in
direct contact with both the facts and the ideas with which
these two methods begin, and on which they depend. This
power can be nothing less than intuition. Intuition is the
direct and immediate perception of facts on the one side, and
of principles on the other. No reasoning can begin upon any
other ground. The data of all reasoning is given at first hand
in intuition alone. Hence intuition is the only power of dis-
covery. When it reveals the external facts, it acts through the
external senses; when it reveals ideas, principles, laws, it acts
through the soul.

** And here comes to view the spiritual method of philosophy.
It is direct, intuitive, aboriginal, authoritative, and supreme.
All possible speculation rests at last on its revelations. I say
* revelations.' When we see the external forms of the outward

3o8

PLANCHETTE.

world, a revelation is made ; when we discover an idea, another
revelation is made. ' Revelation ' is the great aboriginal fact in
all mentality. We no more will to see the world than we will
to be. We do not come to know that we are^ or that any thing
else is by induction any more than we will to be^ by induction.
The consciousness of the existence of the me, and of the not me,
is as direct a revelation as it is possible to conceive. Xhese are
the great aboriginal intuitions of all souls, and form the ground
of all possible reasoning. Now, if it be possible to get the
greater, it is possible to get the lesser facts of existence by
such aboriginal intuition, — direct < revelation.' Indeed, all the
contents of existence are included in this primal intuition of
existence itself. And if the existence itself can be thus g^ven
intuitively, directly, and with supreme authority, so can all the
contents of existence be so given.

Hence the spiritual method of philosophy. All' perceptions
by the senses are direct intuitions of all that sensation reveals
or perceives. Sensation may be, and doubtless is, limited to
the phenomenal alone ; but if so, its intuition of phenomena is
direct and authoritative. So spiritual intuition perceives directly
and at first hand the eternal laws and ideas which rule the whole
phenomenal empire of the world. Hence all reasoning is de-
pendent on intuition as the great revelator of all things and
principles. It is the supreme voice of the absolute in the soul
of man ; or, rather, it is the world, the universe, of both phe-
nomena and power arisen into self-cognition. The conscious-
ness of man is the self-cognition of the universe.

** Axioms of mathematics are self-revelations of eternal ideas,
— * self-evident truths.' They are eternal. Axioms are given as
eternal, and as absolute. They admit of no contradiction, no
limitation, and no suspension. They are absolute authority.
Other axioms have the same character. Axioms are not infer-
ences, not deductions. They do not depend upon logic; logic
depends upon them. All reasoning derives from, not gives au-
thority to, them. Hence these are intuitions of eternal princi-
ples. Now, if the greater can be given by intuition, so can the

DISCOURSE OF A MEDIUM.

less. And hence the spiritual method opens unew the rojal
road to knowledge. Clairvoyance is a practical proof of the
feasibility and utility of the intuitive method. If the uneducated
shoemaker's apprentice, blindfolded and paralyzed, can, through
supersenuous channels, inact the great facts of science (as has
been proved and tested in this country often), then we have a
practical and experimental proof and exhibition of the reality
and truth of the spiritual method of philosophy.

"Mere metaphysical argument alone is inadequate to reach
the masses. But when to spiritual metaphysics we add the ex-
perimental illustration of the transcendent nature and relations
of the soul, we secure both sides of the required demonstration.
And when on the top of all this, we place the wonderful facts
of spiritual intercourse, our philosophy becomes irresistibly
demonstrative. It recognizes the intuitive method as authority
m revelation, and the inductive and deductive methods as the
two wings oi demonstration. The first reveals ideas and facts, —
the original data of all philosophy. The last two show the
logic and relations of those data.

" Hence the completeness of the spiritual philosophy. Does
sensationalism ask for * facts'? The experimental branch of our
philosophy gives them in abundance. Does idealisin demand
ideas and deductions ? The ideal side gives them at first hand.
Does pantheism demand recognition of the Infinite Presence
and Power? Intuition gives us the direct revelation thereof in
the very substance of the soul and its relations.

" It is vain for Mr. Spencer, Mr. Mansel, and others, to deny
to us any absolute knowledge, or any knowledge of the absolute.
The * absolute* of Spencer, Mansel, and others, is nonentity de-
fined as Being. This is evident from Mr. Spencer's summary
of the argument for the * relativity of all knowledge.' He says,
* We have seen how, from the very necessity of thinking in re-
lations, it follows that the relative itself is inconceivable except
as related to a real non-relative.* We reply, A ^non-relative*
related to the * relative* is a contradiction in terms, and an im-
possible conception. Mr. Spencer's < non-relative,' is used to

PLANCHBTTB.

mean the ' absolute,* ' the infinite, — the real reality underlyimg
all appearances,^ And yet it is said \o be out of all relations^ —

* non-relative.' And yet the relative itself is conceived as de-
pendent for its conception on its relations to this non-rela-
tive.'

<*If this is not self-contradiction with a vengeance, what can
be ? Mr. Spencer's * non-relative ' is nonentity defined as the

* absolute,' *the infinite,' — a 'real reality underlying all appearr
ances.' Can the * infinite,* * real reality,' be destitute of all rela-
tions? It is absurd. The very argument for the ' relativity of
all knowledge,' destroys itself ; for the very idea *• relative,' is
acknowledged to be dependent on its relation to the * absolute.'
The characteristics of Mr. Spencer's * non-relative ' are those of
zero. The * infinite ' of Nature and of the soul are not identical
with this * absolute ' of Spencer. He is therefore wrong. An

* infinite reality underlying all ' things must be the* aboriginal
esse of the entire universe, the one indivisible substance and
power of all forms and all force. Hence it is in contact with the
soul, with the mind. Nay : it is the substance of both body
and souh

" And who shall then attempt to set limits to our knowledge?
No man can do it, until he can comprehend the infinite possibili-
ties of eternal progress; until he can take the latitude and longi-
tude of all possible truth ; until he can measure all the possible
developments of immortal ages ; until he can rise out of his own
limitations to a realm where he can embrace and outline the
whole future career of the immortal intellect of man. And this
is self-evidently impossible.

"The very ground on which Mr. Spencer plants himself to
prove the * relativity of all knowledge,' is, by his own claims,
and in his own words, * the ever-present sense of real existence^
He confounds the idea of some knowledge of the * infinite,* with
infinite knowledge. His whole system is that of subjective
atheism; or, if you choose, of objective idealism. He plants
us in an ontological vacuum between the objective world and the

* absolute ' Nature ; and after granting the clear conception of

DISCOURSE OF A MEDIUM.

the one, and the ' ever-present sense ' of the other, denies us any
absolute knowledge of either.

" He attempts, it is true, to save religion ; but he saves it to us
as the pursuit of an * utterly inscrutable power,' of whose nature
and character, whether divine or devilish, we can never have any
knowledge whatsoever. And yet he bids us worship this * utterly
unknowable power.* What is that religion good for that bids us
worship ' we know not what'? It may be deity, it may be devil.
And are we to be told that, though religion can never rise to the
idea of divinity, can never know there is a God, — in other words,
can never have a philosophy of religion, — we must still push on
after both deity and a religious philosophy ? Is this the way re-
ligion, the grandest pursuit of man, is to be saved to the nine-
teenth century? What is this but atheism under another name?
What is the difference to me, whether it be proved that I can
never know God, or that there ts no knowable God? Is it not all
one as to worship ? Can we be rationally called upon to worship
utter inscrutability under pretence that it may be divine for
aught we know? To such absurdities has modern sensational-
ism and inductive philosophy driven itself.

** But Spiritualism relegates man to the aboriginal sources of
all inspiration and all revelation. It plants itself on the demon-
stration of the spiritual entity and supersensuous relations of
the soul. It illustrates its philosophy in its experiments. It
rises inductively from this demonstration to the divine idea, —
to God ; or, starting with this divine idea, reasons deductively
down to the idea of the soul and its immortality. Starting with
th^ fact that man is a spirit se, it rises to the inference that
all aboriginal substance may be spirit, fer se. Or, starting with
the idea of God as infinite spirit, shows that there is no room
for * matter ' as aboriginal substance in the universe. If one
admits the idea of infinite spirit, — God, — he cannot escape the
great spiritual idea that there is but one substance in the uni-
verse; viz.. Spirit. If one start with the idea of the spiritual
entity of the soul, he lands in the same conclusion. Both paths
lead to the same great idea. And when we perceive the unity of

313

PULMCHBTTB.

nature ; when we regard the mutual transfonnabilitj of bodies,
and of all forces ; when we discover in the analyzed sunbeam
and starbeam the elements which have been precipitated and
hardened into rocks and coal and iron and other metals ; when
we behold ever^rwhere the reign of the same invisible power,
ever changing in form, but ever the same in esse, — the soul is
carried, as on the tide of inspiration, up to the same great idea
that spirit * is all, and in all.*

Our philosophy shows that man is made of the same stuff as
the universe is. Hence, his fraternity with all things. For how
could man receive life, power, substance, light, heat, gravitation,
electricity, beauty, and wisdom, if he were not composed at bot-
tom of substance and power and law, one and identical with
these? All substance and power is one, or no universe could
arise out of them. Hence man is the autocrat of creation.
He carries sheathed within his flesh the potent secrets of all
things.

** And here, it will be seen, is a religious philosophy, which
carries with it ail the causes of ultimate success. In its view, all
creation is trembling with the tides of divine life. Hence its
high estimate of true science. Can science discover a truth our
philosophy will not consecrate and use? No; for science is
only the study of modes and symbols of divine life and action.
Spiritualism is the only religion on earth, that can * have science
for symbol and illustration.* It is the mathematics and ethics
of eternal law. It is true it makes religion natural ; but then it
makes nature spiritual and divine. It does not degrade God to
* matter; * it elevates * matter * to spirit. It does not reduce reli-
gion to * material * science ; it elevates science to the divine busi-
ness of justifying, explaining, and demonstrating religion. . . .
It is spiritual power alone that thus renews the world. The
meaning of spiritual is real, in our philosophy.

** Hence the spiritual idea of man : man is nature, physical
and spiritual, essential and phenomenal, gone up into organic,
•elf-conscious moral unity and volition. He has a sense for
•«ch external phenomenon, and a spiritual faculty for all eternal

MORALITY OP SPIRITS.

It was spiritual inspiration which moved the poet to

* Even here I feel
Among these mighty things, that as I am,
I am akin to God ; that I am part
Of the use universal, and can grasp
Some portion of that reason in the which
The whole is ruled and founded ; that I have
A spirit nobler in its cause and end,
Lovelier in order, greater in its powers,
Than all these bright and swift immensities t '

** As the solid earth is but precipitated sunbeams, so the na-
ture of man is organized spirit. The body is but the secreted
shell of the soul. ... A day will come to every soul, when into
the channels of its purified being will pour the love, the truth,
and the beauty of the world. To be passive to the spirit of na-
ture, is the secret of genius, and the path of salvation. Thus
does the spiritual philosophy revive the hopes, and strengthen
the soul of man."

We translate the following from the ** Livre des Esprits " of
Allan Kardec: —

" The morality of the superior order of spirits is substantially
that of Christ in this evangelical maxim : Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you ; that is to say, do good, and not
evil. In this principle, man may find the universal rule of con-
duct for his slightest acts.

They teach us that egoism, pride, sensuality, are passions
which bring us nearer to the animal nature in attaching us to
matter ; that he who here below detaches himself from matter
by contempt of merely worldly futilities, and by love of the
neighbor, draws nearer to a spiritual nature ; that each one of
us ought to render himself useful according to the faculties and
the means which God has put into our hands for proving us ;
that the strong and the influential owe support and protection to
the feeble, for he who abuses his power to oppress his fellow-
creatures, violates the law of God.

They teach, finally, that in the world of spirits, as nothing

verities,
write, —

FUiNCHBTTE.

can be concealed, the hypocrite will be unmasked, and all his
turpitudes exposed ; that to the state of inferiority and of supe-
riority of spirits are attached pains and enjoyments which are
unknown upon earth. But they also teach that there are no
faults that are irremissible, and that cannot be effaced by expia-
tion. Man finds the means of remission and improvement in
the different existences that afford him an opportunity to advance
according to his desire and his efforts, in the way of progress,
and towards the perfection which is his ever-receding goal."

In an able series of essays, entitled **What is Religion?"
Mr. Shorter shows the fallacy of the notion that Spiritualism is
a new religion; or, indeed, a religion at all. He shows that
religion is not the mere acceptance of other people's beliefs;
that belief, simply as such, and separate from the moral element
of faith, or, in other words, mere opinion about religion, no
more makes a man religious, than his opinion about shoe-
making makes him a shoemaker ; that history is not religion ;
that literature is not religion ; and that morality simply is not
religion ; for though religion comprehends morality, as the
larger comprehends the less, yet morality may be practised
from such motives as not to include religion.

But, contends Mr. Shorter, if Spiritualism be not religion, it
leads up thereto ; it evidences, illustrates, confirms, enforces
it; and gives certainty to what in many minds had become
doubtful. It brings heaven and hell sensibly nearer and more
real to us as states of being, the necessary consequence of what
we have been and are, and so opens out to us broade^ grander,
nobler views of man's nature and destiny than is possible to
those to whom nature and the present life are all; or, than is
common when religion consists mainly in the acceptance of
tradition and dogma, which are held but as the accident of edu-
cation and geographical position.

It shows men, to use the words of Henry More, the Platonist
(1659), that ** no other Nemesis should follow them than what
they themselves lay the train of."

While Spiritualism corroborates and elucidates the genuine

LAW OF MORAL GRAVITATION. 315

truths of religion, it also exposes and corrects many of the
delusions and mistakes into which men have blundered in their
speculations on matters associated with it. Mr. Shorter in-
stances, as an illustration, the old controversy on which theolo-
gians are still divided, and, so long as they move only in the old
ruts, are likely to remain so, — the question, whether at death
the soul retains its active, conscious powers, and at once enters
on its new life ; or, whether it only wakes to consciousness to be
re-united to its resuscitated body at some period unknown, when
the great assize of all humanity is to be held, and the affairs of
the world finally wound up.

Now it needs no argument to show, that, if there be any truth
in Spiritualism, there can be none in the latter of these two
views. If the departed still perceive, remember, think, love,
suffer, and enjoy, and communicate with us, it must be evident
that they are neither in their graves, nor are they like an ante-
diluvian toad imbedded in a coal seam, in a state of torpor or
suspended animation ; but that, on the contrary, they are in the
present plenitude of their life, with all that appertains to it.

Religion, then, is something to be experienced and lived : it is
not now to be discovered or invented. If modern Spiritualism
dates from 1847, and constitutes a new reUgioUi wherein is it
»ewf What is there in religion since 1847 that there was not
in it in 1846? The immortality of the soul; the existence of a
spirit-world ; the manifestations and ministry of spirits, and
communion with them ; the assurance that Divine mercy
and spiritual progression are not limited to the natural world
and the present life ; that the future retribution is not arbitrary,
penal, and vindictive, but the inevitable consequence of the acts
here done and the character here formed, — these are all ideas
of the old world and of the old faith.

Our place and state, our condition and surroundings in the
spirit-world are determined by a law of moral gravitation, —
the attraction of spiritual affinity. Prudence, even at its best, is
not religion. To set down that feeling as religious, which
springs from a fear of hell, or a desire to secure the good things

3i6

PLANCHETTE.

of heaven, is to degrade the ministry of religion. To inspire
men with dread, — to supplement the jail and the gallows,—
this, indeed, were hangman's work for religion ; and scarce less
degrading were it to religion to employ her to coax men (as
children are coaxed with sugar-plums) by the promise, that if
they will but be good, they shall certainly hereafter be made
very comfortable and be well paid for it.

It is a terrible and mischievous burlesque of religion that
would thus make it the minister tcr human selfishness, provided
only that it be a little more subtle, enlightened, and far-sighted
than ordinary, and coated with a thin varnish of sentiment.
The aim of religion is not to cultivate selfishness of any kind,
not to disguise it under fine names and fair pretences ; but to
deliver men from selfishness of every sort and degree, here and
everywhere, now and at all times, in time and in eternity.
Especially is this so of the religion of Christ."

By self-denial, by unceasing combat against evil, by prayer
for strength to do and to suffer, we prepare ourselves for
heaven, — not to sit down there in idle beatitudes, but to carry
out more fully the ends of our being in works of good uses
towards all creation. We go there to work, not to sit supinely
and enjoy a flow of pleasure. And the cost we are paying here
daily is to fit us for the work.

" We are immortal," says Andrew Jackson Davis, " because,
I. Nature was made to develop the human body ; 2. The human
body was made to develop the human spirit ; and, 3. Every spirit
is developed and organized sufficiently unlike any other spirits or
substance in the universe, to maintain its individuality throughout
eternal spheres,

" Each human spirit possesses within itself an eternal affinity
of parts and powers; which affinity there exists nothing suffi-
ciently superior in power and attraction to disturb, disorganize,
and annihilate.

Death is but the local or final development of a succession
of specific changes in the corporeal organism of man. As the
death of the germ is necessary to the birth or develooment of

CREDIBILITY OF A FUTURE STATE. 317

the flower^ so is the death of man's physical body an indis-
pensable precedent and indication of his spiritual birth or resur-
rection. That semi-unconscious slumber into which the soul
and body mutually and irresistibly glide, when darkness per-
vades the earth, is typical of death. Sleep is but death unde-
veloped ; or, in other words, sleep is the incipient manifestation
of that thorough and delightful thange, which is the glorious
result of our present rudimental existence. Night and sleep
correspond to physical death ; but the brilliant day and human
wakefulness correspond to spiritual birth and individual ele-
vation.

" There is every reason why man should rest, with regard to
life and death, and be happy; for the laws of nature are un-
changeable and complete in their operations. If we understand
these laws, and obey them on the earth, it is positively certain
that our passage from this sphere, and our emergement into the
spirit-country, will be like rolling into the blissful depths of
natural sleep, and awakening from it, to gaze upon, and to dwell
in, a more congenial and harmonious world."

*'As to the immortality of the soul," writes Bianca Mojon
(who died in Paris in 1849), maintain that we all feel it
independently of revelation. It is not a mathematical cer-
tainty, (?) — that does not belong to moral questions ; but it is
precisely a moral certainty. Without this belief, there is neither
religion, charity, nor possible virtue. Not that I believe those
who deny immortality to be incapable of virtue ; but I maintain
that they are actuated by a confused feeling of immortality,
which, in spite of every thing, works in them. Their opinion
is but a negative doubt, and the want of an intellectual sense.
I conjure you, then, with tears in my ejres, not to withhold this
support and consolation from your children. Do not throw
them into the void and desolation of metaphysical doubt.'*

The credibility of a future state of existence is fully suffi-
cient to become a practical principle, however low the evidence
may appear ; for, at the very lowest, we cannot prove the nega-
tive. Death, even to our senses, is not an annihilation, but
onlv a new combination of matter.

PLANCHETTE.

At a convention of Spiritualists in Cleveland in 1867, Mr.
Burtis, of Rochester, an aged man, is reported to have said,

I am hardly nineteen years old. It is about that time since
these tiny raps came to my house, and awakened me to a con-
sciousness not only of the life beyond, but of this life also. I
had been here many years, but it was only from that time
I began to live." *

How well does this saying of the old man confirm these words
of Jean Paul Richter : ** A man may, for twenty years, believe
the immortality of the soul ; in the one-and-twentieth, in some
great moment, he for the first time discovers with amazement
the rich meaning of thi5 belief, the warmth of this naphtha-
well I "

" Christianity, when rightly understood," says Mr. H. J.
Slack, presents itself as the synthesis of all that heathen
times endeavored to reach. It is a purification and comple-
tion of the wisdom of the past, not an antagonism, as some
would teach."

In the narrative by Plato of the last days of Socrates, his
friend Crito is represented as asking him the question, ** How
and where shall we bury you?" Socrates tebukes the phrase
instantly: "Bury me," he answers, in any way you please, if
you can catch me to bury. . . . Say rather, Crito, say, if you
love me, where shall you bury my body; and I will answer
you. Bury it in any manner and in any place you please."

But how can a soul issue from the lifeless body without our
seeing it? asks the skeptic. To which it may be replied, that to
appeal to sense to prove the non -agency, and therefore the non-
existence of an object not perceptible by sense, is hardly sound
logic.

"When the materialist argues," says Sir Benjamin Brodie,
" that we know nothing of mind except as being dependent on
material organization, I turn his argument against him, and
say that the existence of my own mind is the only thing of
which I have any positive and actual knowledge."

The Catholic Church admits the facts of Spiritualism. Re-

CATHOLIC TESTIM0NY.

ccntly in New York, Father Hecker, an eminent Catholic divine,
declared that **with the truth underlying Spiritualism there is
no issue, so far as the Catholic Church is concerned. It has
ever been a household affair in the Church." As to the character
of the manifestations, he believed they were demoniacal rather
than angelical. ** The Church," he says, " has an order of
exorcists to combat the demoniac influence, and provides for
the use of the exorcistic ritual whenever the signs establishing
demoniac 'possession * are clearly proved; and, singular .to say,
those signs are the identical ones now used by Spiritualists to
prove their doctrine ; namely, speaking in tongues with which
the medium is not, in the natural state, conversant ; disclosing
a knowledge of things hidden; showing strength above that
appertaining to the years and constitution of the medium.
Spiritism, doubtless, has intercourse with the other world, but
not with the heavenly portion of it.

** No one who reads can doubt that there has ever been an
intercourse between the human race and the spirits of the other
world. This is the most deep, the most mysterious instinct of
the human soul. And there is nothing connected with this that
shocks us. Shakespeare, the great poet of the heart, introduces
the ghost in *■ Hamlet' in order to corroborate, as it were, the
theory that the spirits of the departed are our familiars still.
Socrates believed that he saw and conversed with his familiar
spirit. So strong is the belief on these points, that the great
Dr. Johnson avowed that he would not maintain that the dead
were seen no more, against the concurrent testimony of the
world."

The theory that the modem spiritual phenomena proceed,
without exception, from fallen spirits or devils, has been urged
by several learned writers, both Catholic and Protestant. The
" Dublin Review," the great organ of Catholic theology in Ire-
land, has an important article in its issue for October, 1867, in
which it admits the phenomena, but pronounces them infernal.
It quotes from a work by Father Perrone, published at Ratisbon
in 1866, in which that learned ecclesiastic gives a selection from

320

, PLANCHETTE.

the names of several eminent persons, lay and clerical ; among
the latter, Lacordaire, Sibour (the late archbishop of Paris), the
late Cardinal Gousset, and others, on whose minds a full con-
viction of the genuineness of the spiritual phenomena had been
wrought. The writer in the " Dublin Review " remarks as fol-
lows in regard to these phenomena : —

** Among men of keen and cultivated minds they were at first
received, not only with disbelief, but with laughter and derision :
they were rejected as untrue, not because not proven, but because
incapable of proof, because they were impossible ; and, indeed,
impossible they are, as we shall see, to mere human power and
skill. Among the characteristics of the world in modern times,
a tendency to believe in the preternatural most certainly can nol
be reckoned. The phenomena of magnetism and spiritism at
least appear preternatural. The predisposition was dead against
accepting them : it was predicted that, before the generation that
witnessed their rise had died out, they would have disappeared
and been forgotten. Weil, years have rolled on ; and men who
formerly would not without impatience read or listen to the ac-
counts of these phenomena (the present writer was one of these),
had at length been led to examine what was making such a noise
in the world, and from mature, and for a time prejudiced, exam-
ination, have been led to conviction. In this way have been
brought round several of the ablest and most learned men in
Europe, Catholic theologians, physicians, and philosophers ; and
others. Catholic, Protestant, and free-thinking. Authority does
not necessarily, nor even generally, prove an opinion ; in a mat-
ter of mere opinion, the most inquiring and cautious men may
be greatly deceived, and have been so deceived. But here there
is question of facts and of the testimony of the senses ; of facts
sensible to the sight, the hearing, the touch ; of facts and testi-
monies repeated over and over again, beyond the possibility of
calculation, in the greater part of Europe and America, and re-
corded year after year down to the present day. It is quite im-
possible that about such facts such a cloud of such witnesses
should be all deceived."

DIABOLICAL AGENCY.

321

In regard to the question, By what agency are these phenom^
en a produced? our reviewer condenses very closely the author
whom he follows. The various hypotheses put forward are ex-
amined seriatim^ until certain conclusions (given in the form of
propositions) are reached. " His first proposition is, that though
some oiiSxe, physiological phenomena of.animal magnetism, som-
nambulism and Spiritualism, viewed in themselves and apart
from accompanying adjuncts, may be ascribed to material nat-
ural causes, most of them, or the whole taken in the aggregate,
can by no means be referred to such a source ; " while to refer
the psychological phenomena to unknown laws of nature, as
some do, is extremely unphilosophical and absurd ; for they
contradict laws of nature that are certain and universally known.
For example, it is a law of our nature that we cannot read with
our eyes closed and bandaged, that we cannot speak a language
we never learned," &c.

The closing propositions affirm that good angels cannot be
the cause of these phenomena ; of which no other cause can be
admitted, save bad angels or devils. On these propositions,
Spiritualists, according to their peculiar experiences, are likely
to join issue, and to contend that the existence of bad spirits,
able to manifest their power on this material plane, implies the
existence of good.

But it is something to have proved a spirit, whether good or
bad. If the modern phenomena have done this, they have done
what many minds will accept as the evangel that will lift them
from utter darkness into the light of immortality. Spiritualism
will not be disturbed by this cry of diabolical ageScy. It was
raised centuries ago against one of whom it was said, he spake
as never man spake." To the learned Sadducees of the nine-
teenth century, it will be a gr^at step out of the fog if they can
be made to believe even in a devil.

**If," says an eloquent writer, "we can make no other use of
these lower spirits, — these stragglers on the outer boundaries
of the spiril-worid, — we may at least accept them as adventur-
ous travellers seeking a new world ; accept the floating weeds on

323

PLANCHETTE.

the heaving waves — as signs thai land is near. But how anj
one, with God's spirit to whisper to him, and nature to smile
upon him, and angels in the flesh to love him, and the Bible
open before him, can talk in this way, and seek to frighten us
from the bright path now opening before us, with the smell of fire
and brimstone, and horrible phantasmagoria of nothing but evil,
I cannot tell. For myself, I am resolved to go on ; for, at pres-
ent, I have seen nothing of all this. The fiends have not mocked
me, but the angels have whispered to me ; and if I am told that
they are only the children of falsehood in disguise, still I will go
on. Surely, I shall come up with the outposts of the Great King
before long ; for surely God and the angels are not altogether
banished from a world where, I am told, the spirits of evil are
allowed to lurk for prey 1 "

Cudworth, one of the noblest of the English Platonists and
Spiritualists, writing nearly two centuries ago, dismisses, with
something like scorn, the notion that evil powers can ever estab-
lish any evil creed ; for, whatever is evil or immoral, is in itself
a standing proof against itself, though it came with all the
power of miracles. "Though all miracles promiscuously," he
says, **do not immediately prove the existence of a God, nor
confirm a prophet, nor whatever doctrine, yet they do all of
them evince that there is a rank of invisible, understanding
beings, superior to men, which the atheist cannot deny."

We have already seen that the followers of Swedenborg give a
bad name to modern Spiritualism. This is sometimes instanced
in opposition, inasmuch as Spiritualists do not deny the limited
seership of^wedenborg. But since the majority of skeptics in
i^gnrdto a future existence would be relieved of their unhappy
doubts, if it could be proved to them that there is any thing like
Spiritual agency, good or bad, going on in the world, would it
be more generous in our Swedenborgian friends to brave the
imIs <^ a*^ investigation, and do what they can to place these
kjKM|«Miena« significant of spirit, on an impregnable scientific
our own part, we are quite willing to run all the risk
aMdilihf**^^ cry ** Pythonism ! " and ^'■Diablerie ! " brandish to

swedenborg's claims. 323

deter us, if we can be the means of conve.ying light and hope
to one poor human mind, groping amid the mists of unbelief on
the great question of the ages, — Does the conscious individual-
ism of man terminate with the phenomenon called death ?

*'The relation of Swedenborgianism to Spiritualism," says
William White, "is a story for a humorist. Years ago, when
familiarity with spirits was rare, Swedenborgians used to snap
up and treasure every scrap of supernatural intelligence. The
grand common objection to Swedenborg was his asserted ac-
quaintance with angels and devils: it seemed an insuperable
obstacle to faith. Many of the early Swedenborgians had won-
derful private experiences to relate. Spirits rapped in Noble*8
study. Clowes professed himself an amanuensis of angels.
Swedenborgians, it might be supposed, were ready to run wild
after spirit manifestations. But it so happened that clairvoy-
ants and mediums, while they confirmed in general Swedenborg's
other- wo rid revelations, contradicted him in many particulars.
This was intolerable, — contradict our heavenly messenger ! At
once the old line of argument was abandoned. Nothing was
now wickeder than converse with spirits. Intercourse with them
is dangerous, disorderly, and forbidden by the Word! True,
Swedenborg did talk with spirits, but he held a special license
from the Lord ; he warned us of its perils ; and his example is
no pretext for all, and sundry. ... In return, the Spiritualists
rank Swedenborg among their chief mediums, and question and
adopt his testimony a/ discretion; but this liberal indifference
only adds fire to the jealousy of the Swedenborgians, and fiercer
and thicker fall their blows." ^

With regard to this alleged danger of spiritual intercourse, so
much insisted on by the followers of Swedenborg, it has been
well replied that, were the danger to the full as great as repre-
sented, the objection would still be insufficient. We have only
to take up a newspaper to be convinced that it is very dangerous
to hold intercourse with men in the natural world ; that there
are here plenty of spirits who lie, and cheat, and rob, and mur-
der. Even in "respectable society," in "the Church," and

PLANCHETTE.

among its ministers, there are many who pretend to be what
they are not ; with whom, for instance, charity is often on the
lip while bitterness is in the heart. Are we, therefore, to aban-
don society, to abandon religion, to shut out all human inter-
course ? God forbid ! The prosecution of natural science is, we
know, attended with danger, sometimes with destruction : are
we therefore to abandon it? Is the knowledge of spiritual things
jess important, less noble than of material things? And is the
fear of danger the most noble and heroic virtue that Christianity
has enshrined?

If, as Swedenborg says, spirits associate only with their like,
then to false and malignant men alone is there danger from false
and malignant spirits : those who earnestly seek truth and good-
ness do not incur it.

The literal sense of the teachings of the Old Testament is
generally rejected by the Swedenborgians ; but it is now thought
convenient to adhere to it, so far as it prohibits spiritual inter-
course. That must be permitted to Swedenborg only. But will
it be contended that all which was prohibited to Jews under the
old dispensation, is prohibited to Christians under the new?

There have been many seers who, like Swedenborg, Thomas
L. Harris, and others, have claimed infallibility; but in reverent
minds this very claim must be conclusive against them. Swe-
denborg, it is well known, relates that, while he sat eating ki a
tavern in London, the Infinite One appeared to him in the form
of a man, and talked quite familiarly with him, upbraiding him
for eating so much, &c.

Probably Ho medium, while subjected to the limitations of our
earthly condition, can be implicitly trusted in what he may af-
firm as to the identity of a spirit. *' It must not be supposed,"
says Delachambre, author of a *' System of the Soul," published
in 1665, " that the form of the soul and of angels is fixed and
determinate, like that of solid bodies : it is vague and change-
able like that of the air and the liquids, which assume the form
of all the solid bodies surrounding them ; and the difference is
this, that the vivacity of the forms that upervene to the latter

OBJECT OF EARTHLY DISCIPLINE. 325

is of necessity, and that 'which is found in spiritual substances
depends on their will ; for, as they move as they please all their
parts, they also assume whatever form they desire."

If spirits have this plastic power (and all the modern phenom-
ena go to prove it), their capacities of deception as to identity
may be far greater than we imagine. Perhaps our own spiritual
insight, purity, and elevation must be the measure of our ability
to detect spiritual impostors. Perhaps Supreme Wisdom inten-
tionally keeps us unrelieved from the necessity of exerting our
own faculties for the prosecution of truth. ** If God," says Less-
ing, " should hold all truth inclosed in his right hand, and in
his left only the ever-active impulse to the pursuit of truth, al-
though with the condition that I should always and for ever err,
and should say to me. Choose ! I should fall with submission
upon his left hand, and say, * Father, give 1 Pure truth is for
thee alone!*"

A noble saying; offspring, we believe, of a profound insight
into spiritual laws ; signifying that our own individuality and
the great ends of our being are best promoted by that discipline
which compels us to think for ourselves, do for ourselves, and
seek light for ourselves ; seek it not only from the exercise of
our meditative powers, but from communion with all good in-
fluences and spirits and men. But if we think to find spirits
who will relieve us of the trouble of exercising our own mental
and moral faculties, we must not complain should we become
the dupes of such as are unscrupulous, false, or fanciful. Good
spirits, we may be sure, will not try to violate the laws of oui
being by making us mere passive instruments under their con
trol, thus taking from us all spiritual dignity and freedom.

CHAPTER XII.

SPIRITISM. — PRE-EXISTENCE. — METEMPSYCHOSIS.

" Moreover, something is or seems,
That teaches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams,
Of something felt, like something here ;
Of something done, I know not where, —
Such as no language may declare." — Tennyson,

TT TE have said that the modern spiritual movement is leader-
' ▼ less. This fact is one of its remarkable features. All
attempts to identify any one man, or set of men, with any expo-
sition of its principles, claiming to be authoritative, and accepted
as such, have proved utter failures. Even organizations and
conventions seem, by the necessity of their nature, too narrow
for its ever-widening circles. The unprecedented progress of
Spiritualism, numbering as it does its recipients by millions in
the United States alone, is a success that is to no extent due
to the concentration and exclusiveness of a creed, or to the ma-
chinery of a sect. It has baffled all the calculations of those
who believe there can be no efficient propagandism without a
creed and an organization.

All the arguments that could disaffect the worldly and alarm
the timid, have been freely used to check its advance. With
some few honorable exceptions, the learned and the influential
have not only stood aloof, but have denounced it either as an
imposture, or as a diabolical snare. Many persons, calling them-
selves Spiritualists or mediums, have done all they could to give
it a bad name by laying at its door their own offences against
good morals, good English, or good taste. It has been stabbed
in the house of its friends, as well as mobbed and maligned hy

AN UNHEEDED WARNING.

327

Its enemies ; and yet never did its great truths shine for so many
eyes with an immortal lustre, as at this day. Never was it so
secure in the triumphs of the future ; and never did it see Science
herself so thoroughly rebuked and confounded by the over-
whelming testimony by which it is upheld above the sneers of*
the unthinking, and the arrogant hostility of those who decide
without examining, and make their own experience the measure
of God's truth.

In France, when the news of the Rochester knockings began
to make a noise, M. Latour, editor of the " Medical Union," who
had experimented sufficiently to satisfy himself that they were
not all fraud or delusion, wrote (May, 1853) as follows : ** What,
then, is this phenomenon? Grand Dieu! I cannot hazard the
least opinion on the subject. But this I will say, that science
should seriously seek to produce these singular facts, to study
and determine their laws, and divine their nature, if it is possible.
What is there hidden in the discovery of these phenomena, and
what is reserved for the future? If the scientific vjorld neglect
and disdainfully deny them without experimenting^ they will fall
into unworthy hands., and be obscured by exaggeration and en-
thusiasm, and serve for the propagation of mystical practices :
they will serve to nourish folly and credulity and charlatanry ;
but if the savans wish it, they will perhaps find the germ of some'
great discovery. To animate inert bodies, and make them obey
the will, is, no doubt, repugnant to human reason. Two thou-
sand years ago it was observed by hazard that a piece of amber,
on being rubbed, had the property of attracting light bodies.
This phenomenon, passed over by the science of the ancients,
has now become the pivot on which turns modern science. Can
human reason fully explain why the needle always turns towards
the north? Does it know the intimate nature of magnetism,
electricity, of caloric, of light? And, while regarding this table
on whifch I write, I cannot help crying, as Galileo of old did of
the universe, ^ And yet you turn* "

The warning of this man of science to his brethren does not
•eem to have bfeen heeded; and much that he predicted has un-

32S

PLANCHETTE.

doubtedly come to pass. Spiritualism has been tended and
nursed by the lowly and unpretending ; and the stubborn facts
that have been elicited are not now to be set aside.

The man who has perhaps approached neaicest to the character
of a leader of the spiritual movement in France, is M. Hippo-
Ijte-L^on-Denizard Rivail, who, under the pseudonym of Allan
Kardec, has had remarkable success, by his writings and teach-
ings, in making a belief in the spiritual solution of the modern
phenomena carry with it the Platonic doctrine, somewhat
modified, of pre-existence and re- incarnation. Before Kardec,
this ancient doctrine had been advocated by several of the
French philosophers and mystics; by St. Simon, Prosper En-
fantin, St. Martin, Fourier, Pierre Leroux; and, lastly, by Jean
Reynaud, the literary associate of Leroux, and author of a re-
markable work entitled ** Terre et Ciel," of which we shall have
more to say.

Kardec was born in Lyons, in 1804. A pupil of Pestalozzi, he
became one of the propagators of the educational system of that
distinguished reformer. Born of Catholic parents, Kardec gave
much thought from an early age to the subject of religious re-
form. In 1850, he began the examination of the American
spiritual phenomena. Becoming convinced of their genuine-
ness, he applied himself to the deduction of their philosophical
consequences. In this task, he employed both the inductive and
the deductive processes ; investigating phenomena, interrogating
the supposed spirits through a great variety of mediums, and
then examining the results by the light of his own reason and
spiritual intuitions. The information thus procured he has con-
densed and arranged methodically, adding his own remarks and
explanations in a manner to distinguish them from the rest of
the text.

To his system he gives the name of Spiritt'sm, "The words
Spiritualism, Spiritualist" he says, ** have a well-defined accep-
tation : to give them a new' one by applying them to the doctrine
of spirits, would be to multiply the causes, already so numerous,
of amphibology. Properly speaking, Spiritualism is the oppo-

KAROEC'S SPIRITISM.

site of materialism : whoever believes he has within him some-
thing distinguished from matter, is a Spiritualist; but it may
not follow that he believes in the existence of spirits, or in their
communications with the visible world. To designate this latter
belief, we employ, in place of the words Spiritualism^ Spiritual'
ist, the words Spiritism, Spiritist."

In 1858, Kardec established ** La Revue Spirite," a monthly
magazine, which is still published. He is the author of several
volumes, in which his peculiar doctrines are set forth in a re-
markably clear, matter-of-fact style, methodical and precise, free
from all mysticism and prolixity. One great cause of his suc-
cess is perhaps his lucid, intelligible way of treating the pro-
foundest questions relating to the dual nature of man.

According to the doctrine * of Spiritism, the soul is the Intel*
ligent principle which animates human beings, and gives them
thought, will, and liberty of action. It is immaterial, individual,
and immortal ; but its intimate essence is unknown : we cannot
conceive it as absolutely isolated from matter, except as an ab-
straction. United <o an ethereal or a fluid envelope ox perisprit,
it constitutes the concrete spiritual being, determinate and cir-
cumscriptive, called spirit. By metonymy, we often employ the
words soul and spirit, the one for the other, speaking of happy
souls or happy spirits, &c. ; but the word soul, according to Spir-
itism, suggests the idea rather of an abstract principle, and the
word spirit that of an individuality.

The spirit, united to the material body by incarnation, consti-
tutes the man; so that in man there are three things: the soul^
properly so-called, or intelligent principle; the perisprit, or
fluid envelope of the soul ; the body^ or material envelope. The
soul is thus a simple being ; the spirit, a double being, composed
of the soul and the perisprit ; the man, a triple being, composed
of the soul, the perisprit, and the body. The body, separated
from the spirit, is inert matter ; the perisprit, separated from the

* We an mdebted to " Le Dictionn'aira Universel " of Maurice Lach&tre for tht
nibetiiiM of this etatement.

330

PLANCHETTE.

soul, 18 a fluid matter without life or intelligence. " The soul if
the principle of life and of intelligence.

It is not true, therefore, as certain critics have pretended, that
in giving to the soul a fluid, semi-material envelope, Spiritism
has made of it a material being.

The first origin of the soul is unknown, because the principle
of things is one of the secrets of Omnipotence ; and it is not
given to man, in his actual state of inferiority, to comprehend
all. On this point, one can onlj formulate systems. According
to some, the soul is a spontaneous creation of Divinity; accord-
ing to others, it is a very emanation, a portion, a spark of the
divine essence. The problem is one on which we can only estab-
lish hypotheses, inasmuch as there are reasons for and against.
* Against the second of these opinions, the following objection
is brought : God being perfect, if souls are portions of Divinity,
they ought to be perfect, by reason of the axiom that the part is
of the same nature as the whole ; whence the question would
arise. Why are souls imperfect and in need of further improve-
ment?

Without stopping at the different systems touching the inti-
mate nature and the origin of the soul. Spiritism considers it as
it is manifested in the human race : it ascertains, by the proofs,
of its isolation and of its action, independent of matter during
life and after death, the great facts of its existence, its attributes,
its survivance, and its individuality. Its individuality is shown
in th^ diversity which exists in the ideas and .qualities of each in
the phenomenon of the manifestations ; a diversity which im-
plies for each a proper existence.

A fact not less important is proved by observation : it is that
the soul is essentially progressive, and that it makes acquisitions
unceasingly in knowledge and in moral wisdom, since we find it
at all stages of development. The almost unanimous teaching
of spirits tells us it is created simple and ignorant; that is to
say, without knowledge, without consciousness of good and of
evil, with an equal aptitude for either, and for acquiring all.

Creation being incessant, and from all eternity, there are souls

DOCTRINE OF RE-INCARNATION. 33I

arrived at the summit of the ladder when others are arriving at
the consciousness of life ; but, all having the same point of de-
parture, God creates no one of them better endowed than an-
other, and this is in conformity with his sovereign justice: a
perfect equality presiding at their formation, they advance more
or less rapidly, by virtue of their free will, and according to the
pains they take. God thus leaves to each the merit or demerit
of his acts, and the responsibility increases as the moral sense
develops. So that of two souls created at the same time, the
one may arrive at a certain height more quickly than the other,
if it labors more actively for its amelioration ; but those who lag
behind have it equally in their power to reach that height, al-
though not so soon, and after many rude experiences, for God
does not shut the future to any of his children. '

The incarnation of the soul in a material body is, according to
Spiritism, necessary to its improvement, by the labor which the
corporeal existence demands, and the intelligence it develops.
Not being able, in a single life, to acquire all the moral and intel-
lectual qualities whieh are needed to conduct it to its goal, it ar-
rives there in passing through an unlimited series of existences^
whether upon this earth or in other worlds^, in each of which it
takes a step in the way of progress, and gets rid of some of its
imperfections. Into every existence the soul brings what it hai
acquired in its preceding existences. And thus is explamed the
difference which exists in the innate aptitudes, and in the degree
of advancement of races and people.

According to Spiritism, the universe is an immense labora-
tory, where humanity, "emanating from an ethereal fluid,
becomes elaborated, individualizing itself by incarnation, puri-
fying itself in bodies as in so many crucibles ; and, through a
progressive advancement, by virtue of its inherent perfectibility,
arriving finally at the state where it ii the crowning work of
creation." ♦

* " La Ralson du Spirititme, par Michel Bonnamy. Paris : 1868." S«e, also,
*' Du Spiritualisme Rationnel, par G. H. Love. Paris : 1863." A work by a man of
science, in which the doctrine of pre-ejpstence and rs-incamatiofi is supported by aTgu>
ments drawn from physical Acts.

33»

PLANCHBTTB.

Such is the system of Spiritism in regar^ to the sours re-
incarnation. It is claimed for it, that it reconciles to our
notions of divine justice the fact of those striking differences,
moral and intellectual, in human beings, from the very moment
of birth.

To its doctrine of pre-existence, it is objected, that it shifts
the difficulty, but does not remove it ; for, go back as far as we
may, we come at last to a point where we have two souls, sup-
posed to have been created equal. Now, if in virtue of their
free will, one of these souls takes a bias to good, and the other
to evil, how can there have been perfect equality in their condi-
tions, or in the temptations to which they were exposed ? Per-
fect equality throughout ought to lead to an equality of results.
Why, then, should one soul get the start of another in good-
ness?

To this objection the Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, the principal
American advocate of the doctrine of pre-existence, replies, in
his able "Conflict of Ages," as follows: "The real and great
difficulty lies, not in the idea that free agents should sin, but in
the idea that God should bring man into being with a nature
morally depraved, anterior to any will, wish, desire, or knowl-
edge of his own, or with a constitution so deranged and corrupt,
as to tend to sin with a power that no man can overcome in
himself or in others; and that, in addition to this, He should
place him in a state of so great social disadvantage, and, as the
climax, expose him, so weak, to the fearful wiles of powerful
and malignant spirits. This difficulty, pre-existence does touch
and entirely remove, by referring the origin of his depravity to
his own action in another state, and showing that the system of
this world is a system of sovereignty established over beings
who have lost their original claims on the justice of God.*

" If now a difficulty is alleged still to exist as to their first

* Here Dr. Beecher diverges from the teachings of Spiritism, in his attempt to
accommodate the theory of pre-existence to the demands of the Calvinistic theology.
It will be seen that Origen believed that all our punishment here is remedial, and that
there >• no qpirit so evil that he may not ultimately reform.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

333

sinning in a previous state, it is enough to .say that this is not
the same difficulty that existed before, but altogether a different
one ; that is, how beings, created with an uncorrupt moral con-
stitution, and in a spiritual system arranged in the best possible
manner to favor their perseverance in right, could possibly sin.
Suppose, then, that this question is not answered, and cannot
be (although I do not concede that it cannot) ; but suppose it.
What then ? It merely leaves a mysterious fact ; but it does not,
as in the former case, present an alleged fact, which the human
mind can see to be within the range of its faculties, and to be
positively unjust. It therefore removes a dispensation positively
unjust, and, in place of it, presents one that is simply mys-
terious.

" But it resorts to mystery in a proper place ; for, since the
past history of the universe is not revealed in detail, nothing
exists to forbid the idea that, whatever were the circumstances
in which men sinned, and whatever were the reasons of their
sinning, still they were such as in the highest degree to show
forth the honor, justice, and love of God, and to throw the
whole blame on man. What, then, if we cannot state exactly
these circumstances and reasons? What if we cannot recon-
struct the past history of each man ?• Still we know nothing,
and we see nothing, to forbid a full belief, based on confidence in
God, that, in all his dealings with them, he was honorable and
just. . . . These disclosures of the BiUe settle the question as
to the origin of evil. They no less clearly prove that the origin
of the sin of man is not to be looked for in this world."

Another reply to the objection may be, that we know not
through what equalities of struggle and temptation all souls
may have passed. The saint of to-day may have been a direful
sinner in some previous state; and many of the differences
among souls may be simply the result of the different number
of disciplinary existences through which they have passed, some
having entered on conscious life in advance of others. Should
this view strike us as a humbling one, it may be none the less
salutary on that account ; for why, when we think of it, should

334

PUiNCHBTTB.

we merit it of Providence that we should be born with better
propensities, or under more auspicious circumstances, than om
neighbor?

The theological dogma that all the numerous millions of
Adam's posterity deserve the ineffable and endless torments
of hell for a single act of his, before any one of them existed, is
admitted by all to be repugnant to that reason which God has
given us ; subversive of all possible conceptions of justice.
Even Pascal, Calvin, Mansel, and other orthodox writers, while
accepting the terrible doctrine, admit thus much, substantially,
as to its character, humanly considered ; but they escape from
the difficulty, by assuming that we must not measure divine by
human notions of justice ; that morality may be one thing on
earth, and another in the heaven of heavens!

With irresistible force has Mr. John Stuart Mill replied to this
attempt to pacify faith at the expense of reason and the moral
sense. He says, **Mr. Mansel combats as a heresy of his oppo-
nents the opinion that infinite goodness differs only in degree
from finite goodness. Here, then, I take my stand upon the
acknowledged principle of logic and morality, Ma/ w/ten we
mean different things, ive have no right to call them by the same
name and to afply to them the same predicates, moral and intel-
lectual. If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being
in whom all the excellences which the highest mind can con-
ceive, exist in a degree, inconceivable to us, I am informed that
the world is ruled by a Being whose attributes are infinite, but
what they are we cannot learn, except that the highest human
morality does not sanction them, — convince me of this, and
J will bear my fate as I may. But when 1 am told that I must
believe this, and at the same time call this Being by the names
which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in
plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a Being may
have over me, he shall not compel me to worship him. • I call
no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet
to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a Being can sentence me to
hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go"

A PREVALENT IDEA. 335

Whittier has expressed similar sentiments, though in a ten-
derer strain: —

" Not mine to look when cherubim

And seraphs may not see ;
But nothing can be good in Him,

Which evil is in me.
The wrong that pains my soul below,

I dare not throne above :
I know not of His hate, — I know

His goodness and His love."

Kardec*s doctrine of pre-existence differs, it will have been
seen, from that of those seers who proclaim the eternity as well
as the immortality of the soul. Kardec believes in the unremit-
ting exercise of the creative power of Deity.

To many Spiritualists the doctrine of re-incarnation seems to
be quite repulsive; though it is largely taught in communica-
tions claiming to be from spirits. Mr. Shorter asks. What
must be the thoughts of the pious mother who imagines the
possibility that the infant at her breast is a graduate from the
galleys or the prison! To this objection it may be retorted,
What must be the thoughts of those pure-minded and faithful
parents, who, in spite of all their parental care and affection,
see their children turn out criminals or sensualists? Would a
theory that exempted those parents from the dread that some-
thing for which they themselves were responsible — something
vicious in their own souls — had dragged those children down,
be wholly unacceptable?

"The prevalent idea with regard to spirits," says Kardec,
" renders the phenomenon of their manifestation, at first sight,
incomprehensible. These manifestations can only take place
through the action of spirit upon matter, and therefore those
who believe that spirit is the absence of all matter, ask, with
some appearance of reason, how it can act materially. Now,
here is precisely their error ; for spirit is not an abstraction : it is
a defined being, limited and circumscribed. The spirit, clothed
in the body, constitutes the soul; but when, at the hour of

336

PLANCHBTTB.

death, it quits the body, it is not divested of all envelopment
All spirits tell us that they preserve the human form ; and,
indeed, when they appear to us, it is in such forms as we can
recognize.

"Let us observe them attentively at the moment that they
have quitted this life. They are in a state of perplexity ; all
seems confused around them. On the one hand, they behold
their body, whole or mutilated, according to the manner of
death; on the other hand, they see and feel themselves alive.
Something tells them that this body belongs to them, and they
cannot understand being separated from it. They continue to
see themselves in their original form ; and this sight produces
amongst some of them, for a short time, a most singular illu-
sion, — that of believing themselves still in the flesh. They re-
quire to become accustomed to their new condition before they
can be convinced of its reality. This first uncertainty being
dispelled, the earthly body becomes to them an old garment
which they have thrown off for ever, and which they no longer
regret. They feel lighter, and as if relieved of a burden. They
experience no longer physical pain, and rejoice in being able to
rise and pass through space, as they sometimes fancied they did
in their earthly dreams.

"Nevertheless, notwithstanding the absence of their earthly
body, they retain their personality. They possess a form, but
one which neither impedes nor embarrasses them. In fact, they
have still their individuality and consciousness of being. What,
then, must we conclude? Briefly, that the soul leaves not all in
the grave, but that she carries something away with her to her
new home."

According to Kardec, death is the disintegration of the mate-
rial body which the soul abandons. The spiritual body, or
ferisprit^ now disengages itself, and accompanies the soul
which thus still finds itself "clothed upon." This new body,
though fluid, etherenl, vaporous, and invisible to us in its nor-
mal state, is as real -^s matter itself, though up to the present
time we have been unable to seize and analyze it.

KARDEC ON THE SPIRIT BODY.

337

This second envelope of the soul exists, then, during the
corporeal life. It is the medium of all the sensations of which
the spirit is conscious, and through which the spirit conveys its
will to its exterior body, and acts upon the various organs. To
use a material comparison, it is the electric wire which serves
to receive and transmit the thought ; it is, in short, that myste-
rious, imperceptible agent, spoken of as nervous fluid. To
recognize this spiritual body, is to obtain the key to a multi-
tude of problems hitherto unexplained.

The spiritual body is not one of those hypotheses to which
science sometimes has recourse to explain a fact. Its existence
is not only revealed by spirits themselves, it is the result of ob-
servation. Whether in the earthly body or out of it, the soul
is never separated from its spiritual encasement.

The spirit body, then, is an integral part of the man ; but this
encasement alone is no more the spirit than the body alone is
the man ; for the spiritual body cannot think : it is to the spirit
what the body is to the man, the agent or instrument of his
action. The human form and that of the spirit body are iden-
tical; and when the latter appears to us, it is generally with
that particular exterior with which we were formerly familiar.
We might think from this that the spiritual body, though sepa-
rate from all parts of the outer body, moulds itself in some way
upon it, and preserves the impress of it ; but it appears that this
is not the case. Making allowance for the organic modifica-
tions necessitated by the surroundings in which men are placed,
with the exception of some details, the human form (says
Kardec) is to be found in the inhabitants of all worlds ; at least,
60 say the spirits. It is, moreover, equally the form of all non-
incarnate spirits, and those who have only the spirit body.

It is the form in which, through all ages, angels and purified
spirits have been represented, from which we may conclude that
the human shape is the type of all human beings, in whatever
state or worlds they may be found. But the subtle substance of
the spirit body has not the tenacity nor rigidity of the material
body. It is, so to speak, flexible and expansive, and therefore

338

PLANCHKTTB.

the form it takes, though traced or copied from that of the bodj,
is not absolute : it bends itself to the will of the spirit. Freed
from these fetters which confined it, the spirit bodj can extend,
contract, or transform itself ; in a word, can lend itself to any
metamorphosis, according to the will which acts upon it. It is
through this property of its fluid encasement that the spirit
which desires to make itself known can take, when necessary,
the exact appearance it had when living, even to the bodily
peculiarities, and the very style of dress, by which it can be
recognized. We see, then, that spirits are beings like ourselves,
forming around us a population, invisible to us in the normal
state.

But the spirit body, though fluid, is, nevertheless, a kind of
matter, and this results in the facts of tangible apparitions.
Under the influence of certain mediums, there have been seen
hands, possessing all the properties and appearances of living
hands, warm and palpable, which offer the resistance of a solid
body, which will seize and hold you, and in a moment vanish
again like a shadow. The definite action of these hands —
which evidently obey a will in executing their movements^, and
playing even on a musical instrument — prove that they are the
visible parts of an invisible intelligence. Their tangibility,
their temperature, and, in short, the impression they make on
the senses, — for they have been known to leave an impress on the
skin, to give blows so hard as to be painful, or caress most deli-
cately, — prove that they are of some species of matter. Their
instantaneous disappearance proves, moreover, that this matter
is eminently subtle, and is of the nature of those substances
which can alternately pass from the solid to the fluid condition,
and vice-versd.

As we have already seen. Spiritism teaches that the essen-
tial nature of the spirit proper, that is, the thinking being, is
entirely unknown to us. It reveals itself to us only by its acts,
and its acts can aflect our material senses but through some
intermediate substance. Thus the spirit requires matter to *act
upon matter. It has, for its direct instrument, the spirit-form,

PRE-EXISTENCE.

339

just as man has the body; hence the spirit-form is matter, as
we have seen. It has, further, the universal ether, a sort of
vehicle on which it can act, as we act on the air, to produce the
effects of dilation, compression, propulsion, and vibration.

Looked at in this manner, the action of spirit on matter is, in
Kardec*s philosophy, easily conceived; and hence it is to be
understood that all the effects which result from it enter into the
class of natural facts, and have in them nothing miraculous.
They have appeared supernatural simply because their cause
was unknown. This once known, the marvellousness disappears,
and this cause is entirely in the semi-material properties of the
spirit body. It is a new order of facts, which will find their
explanation in a newly discovered law, and which will very
shortly astonish us no more than does the intercourse now
made possible through electricity.

It may be asked, perhaps, how the spirit, with the help of so
subtle a substance, can act upon heavy and compact bodies, lift
tables, &c. Surely no man of science, says Kardec, would
raise such an objection ; for, not to mention unknown proper-
ties which this new agent may possess, have we not under our
own eyes analogous examples ? Is it not in the most rarified
gases and the imponderable fluids that industry has found its
most potent motive powers? When we see the air overturn
whole edifices, steam propel enormous masses, gaseous powder
burst asunder mighty rocks, and electricity tear up trees and
pierce the solid walls, what is there strange in allowing that a
spirit, with the aid of its spirit body, can lift a table, especially
when it is known that this spirit body can become visible, tan*
gible, and exhibit the attributes of a solid body ?

On the subject of pre-existence, Henry More, the Platonist,
and the friend and correspondent of Descartes, writes (1659)
as follows: "This consequence of our soul's pre-exislence is
more agreeable to reason than any other hypothesis whatever ;
has been received by the most learned philosophers of all ages,
there being scarce any of them that held the soul of man im-?
mortal upon the mere light of nature and reason, but asserted

340 PLANCHBTTB.

also her pre-existence ; that memory is no fit judge to appeal to
in this controversy ; and, lastly, that traduction * and creation
are as intricate and inconceivable as this opposed opinion.*'

Among the advocates of pre-existence, More enumerates
Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Cebes, Eu-
ripides, Plato, Virgil, Cicero, Hippocrates, Galen, Plotinus,
Jamblichus, Proclus, Boethius, Psellus, Synesius, Origen, Mar-
silius Ficinus, Cardan; and, lastly, the great authority of the
scholastic period, Aristotle, who, in his treatise on the Soul,
speaks of the body that the soul is to actuate; and, blaming
those who omit that consideration, says, "that they are as care-
less of that matter as if it were possible that, according to the
Pythagoric fables, any soul might enter into any body ; whereas,
every animal, as it has its proper species, so it is to have its
peculiar form. * But those that define otherwise,' saith Aris-
totle, * speak as if one should affirm that the skill of a car-
penter did enter into a flute or pipe ; for every art must use its
proper instrument, and every soul its proper body.* Whereas,
as Cardan also has observed, Aristotle does not find fault
with the opinion of the souFs going out of one body into
another (which implies its pre-existence) ; but that the soul
of a beast should go into the body of a man, and the soul of a
man into a beast's body, — this is the absurdity that Aristotle
justly rejects, while the other opinion he seems tacitly to
allow of."

Of Marsilius Ficinus, whom More reckons among the advo-
cates of pre-existence, he relates that Marsilius had made a vow
with his fellow-Platonist, Michael Mercatus, that the one who
might die first should appear to his friend and confirm the truth
of what they had often made a subject of discussion ; namely,

* Tertullian taught what was called " material traducianism" according to which,
life, having its source in the blood, was naturally transmitted from parent to ofi&pring.
There was a spiritual traducianism " taught by another Christian school, according
to which the soul of the offspring was engendered by tHe soul of the parent. Besides
the Platonic doctrine of pre-existetice^ held by Origen, there was a fourth doctrine
called creationism" according to which tlie Deity creates the soul for each indi-
vidual body at or shortly after the moment when the body itself begins to exist

ADVOCATES OF PRE-EXISTBNCE. 34I

the soul's immortality. Michael, being intent on his studies on a
certain morning, heard a horse approaching with all speed, and
observed that he stopped at the window ; and therewith heard
the voice of his friend, Marsilius, crying out aloud, **0 Michael,
Michael! vera, vera sunt ilia!" — O M/c/zael, Michael I those
things are true, are true ! Whereupon Michael suddenly opened
the window, and, espying Marsilius on a white steed, called
after him ; but, as he looked, the apparition vanished. • Michael
sent presently to Florence to inquire how Marsilius was, and
learned that he died about the hour he had appeared at t ie
window.

Of Sir Henry Vane, the younger, Burnet says, *' His friends
told me, he leaned to Origen's notion of a universal salvation
of all, both of devils and the damned, and to the doctrine of
pre-existence. When he saw his death was designed, he* com-
posed himself to it with a resolution that surprised all who
knew how little of that was natural to him."

"It is not without reason," says Saint Martin (1743-1803),
that we look upon the duration of this corporeal life as a time
of chastisement and expiation ; but we cannot look upon it as
such, without forthwith thinking that there must have been for
man a state anterior and preferable to the one wherein he now
finds himself, . . . Each of his sufferings is an index of the
happiness wanting in him ; each of his privations proves that
he was made for enjoyment ; and his present subjection an-
nounces an ancient authority; in one word, to feel now that
he has nothing, is a secret proof that once he had all. . . . As
our material existence is not life, our material destruction is not
death."

Joseph Glanvil, to whose investigations into the facts of
witchcraft and other spiritual phenomena we have already
referred, published in 1662, but without his name, a treatise to
prove the reasonableness of the doctrine of the pre-existence of
souls. He was also the author of a letter, still in existence
among the Baxter manuscripts, full of curious learning in
defence of the doctrine.

34»

PLANCHBTTS.

In Germany, Kant, Schelling, and Jul. MUUer, used the doc-
trine of the metempsychosis to explain the beginning and root
of sin in humanity. Herder, Lessing, Schubert, and Lichten-
berg seem to have favored it. Van Helmont, the younger, who
died in 1699, taught it in Holland.

Herder has some remarkable dialogues on the subject of
metempsychosis ; and, though the vein of them is tentative
rather than dogmatic, it is easy to see the drift of his medita-
tions. We quote a few passages : —

** In nature every thing is related ; morals and phjsics, like
body and spirit. Morality is only a more beautiful physique of
the spirit. Our future destination is a new link in the chain
of our being, which connects itself with the present link most
minutely and by the most subtile progression, as our earth is
connected with the sun, and the moon with our earth. . . .

"Perhaps there are appointed for us places of rest, regions of
preparation, other worlds in which, — as on a golden heaven-
ladder, — ever lighter, more active and blest, we may climb
upward to the fountain of all light, ever seeking, never reach-
ing the centre of our pilgrimage, the bosom of the Godhead.
For we are and must ever be limited, imperfect, finite beings.
But wherever I may be, through whatever worlds I maj be led, I
shall remain for ever in the hands of the Father who hath
brought me hither and who calls me further; for ever in the
infinite bosom of God. ...

** Hereafter, when death shall burst these bonds, when God
shall transplant us like fiowers into quite other fields, and sur-
round us with entirely different circumstances, then Have

you never experienced, my friend, what new faculty a new situa-
tion gives to the soul? A faculty, which, in our old corner, in
the stifling atmosphere of old circumstances and occupations,
we had never imagined, had never supposed ourselves capa-
ble of? . . .

" The younger Van Helmont, in his * De Revolutione Ani-
marum,' has adduced, in two hundred problems, all the sayings
and all the arguments which can possibly be urged in favor of

HERDER ON TRANSMIGRATION.

343

the return of souls into human bodies according to Jewish
ideas. . . . These assert that the soul returns into life on this
planet twice or thrice, — in extraordinary cases oftener, — and
accomplishes what it had left unfinished. . . . And is there no
weight in the arguments from reason in support of these ideas?
Shall not the Long-suflfering and the Just give every one space
and time for repentance? Has not the fruition of life been to
many imbittered and abridged without any fault of their own ?

"Look at the thing humanly: consider the fate of the mis-
born, the deformed, the poor, the stupid, the crippled, the fear-
fully degraded and ill-treated; of young children, who had
scarce seen the light and were forced to depart. Take all this
to heart, and you must either have weak conceptions of the
progress of such people in the world to come, or they must first
have wings made for them here, that they may learn to soar,
even at a distance, after others; that they may be, in some
measure, indemnified for their unhappy, or unhappily abbre-
viated existence in this world. Promotion to a higher, human
existence is scarcely to be thought of in their case.

*'None can give as God gives, and no one can indemnify and
compensate like God. To all beings he gave their existence of
his own free love. If some appear to have been more neglected
than others, has he not places, contrivances, worlds enough,
where, by a single transplantation, he can indemnify and com-
pensate a thousand-fold? A child prematurely removed, — a
youth whose nature was too delicate, as it were, for the rude
climate of this world, — all nations have felt that such are loved
by the gods, and that they have transferred the treasured plant
into a fairer garden. . . . How many may have been made
happy in another world through having been unhappy here I "

With regard to the Pythagorean notion of the transmigration of
souls into the bodies of brute animals. Herder says, ** With some
nations, — for example, the Egyptians and Hindoos; and per-
haps, too, with Pythagoras, — it was designed as a moral fable,
representing the doctrine of ecclesiastical penance in a sensuous
and comprehensible form : " You who are cruel shall be changed

544

PLANCHBTTB.

into tigers, as even now you manifest a tiger-soul. You who
are impure, shall be swine," &c. These representations, ad-
dressed to the senses, and clothed with the authoritj of religion,
would, undoubtedly, have a greater effect than metaphysical
subtleties.

** Our language," says Herder, ** all communication of thought,
what bungling work it is ! Hovering on the tip of our tongues,
between lip and palate, in a few syllabled tones, our heart, our
innermost soul would communicate itself, to another, so that he
shall comprehend us, shall feel the ground of our innermost
being. Vain endeavor I Wretched pantomime with a few ges-
tures and vibrations of air ! The soul lies captive in its dun-
geon, bound as with a seven-fold chain; and only through a
strong grating, and only through a pair of light and air-holes,
can it breathe and see. And always it sees the world on one
side, while there are a million other sides beforie us and in us,
had we but more and other senses, and could we but exchange
this narrow hut of our body for a freer prospect. . , .

" Sacred to me is the saying, * Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that
mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God.* Purification of the heart, the
ennobling of the soul, with all its propensities and cravings;
this, it seems to me, is the true palingenesis of this life, after
iv/tick, J doubt not, a happy^ more exalted^ but yet unknown
metempsychosis awaits us* Herewith I am content."

Schubert, a devoted Spiritualist, and who satisfied himself of
the genuineness of the phenomena produced in the presence
of Mrs. Hauff(^, the Seeress of Prevorst, wrote the " History of
the Soul." His psychological views are not unlike those we
have given in our abstract of Mr. Wake's recent work. Schu-
bert shows, first, how the soul is, as it were, reflected in and by
the body; how it gives form and perfection to our material
organization. Next, entering upon the analysis of mind, he sets
forth the distinction between the soul and the spirit; a distinc-
tion which St. Paul seems to have recognized. Origen also

LESSING ON PRE-BXISTENCB.

345

regarded the soul as intermediate between body and spirit. In
the Alexandrian philosophy, we have the pneutna denominated •
as the rational soul, and the psyche as the sensitive soul, that
which desires or lusts. Irenseus says, "There are three of
which the perfect man consists : flesh, soul, spirit ; the one, the
spirit, giving figure; the other, flesh, being formed. That,
indeed, which is between these two is the soul, which some-
times following the spirit is raised by it ; and sometimes con-
senting to the flesh, falls into earthly lusts " Dr. George Bush
held that the fineuma is to the psyche what the soul is to the
body. The psyche is the spiritual body or body of the spirit.
This view does not differ much from the teachings of Kardec.

Schubert regarded the soul as the inferior part of our intel-
lectual nature, — that which shows itself most distinctly in the
phenomena of our dreams, — the power of which also is situated
in the material constitution of the brain. Tke spirit, on the
contrary, is that part of our nature which tends to the purely
rational, the loflty, the divine I

That profound and intrepid thinker, Lessing, who anticipated
by a century much of the advanced thought of the present, re-
marks as follows on this subject of pre-existence : " Why may
not each individual man have existed more than once in this
world? Is this hypothesis, th/erefore, so ridiculous because it is
the oldest?* because it is the one which the human understand-
ing immediately hit upon before it was distracted and weakened
by the sophistry of the schools ? . . . Why should I not return,
as often as I am able, to acquire new knowledges, new talents ?
Is it because I carry away so much at one time as to make it not
worth the while to return ? Or, because I forget that I have been
here before ? It is well for me that I forget it. The remem-
brance of my former states would allow me to make but a
poor use of the present. Besides, what I am necessitated to for-

* Delitzch pronounces this statement incorrect. Franck, on the other hand, says
that metempsychosis was the earliest form in which the dogma of immortality pre-
sented itself to the human mind. But again we find immortality, but no metempsycho*
sis, in the most ancient poems of India, the *' Rig- Veda,'* for example.

34^

PLANCRBTTB.

get now, have I forgotten it for ever? Or because, on this sup-
position, too much time would be lost to me ? Lost ? What have
I then to fear from delay? Is not ike whole eternity mine? "

According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were the first to enter-
tain the doctrine of metempsychosis. They believed that the
soul was clothed successively with the forms of all the animals
that live on the earth, and that it then returned, afler a cycle of
three thousand years, into the body of a man to recommence its
eternal pilgrimage. From them the Greeks may have received
the idea, which was a leading feature of the doctrine of Pytha-
goras, who claimed to recollect his former self in the person of a
herald named ^thalides ; Euphorbus, the Trojan; and others;
and he even pointed out, in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the
shield he used when he attacked Patrocius. He taug^ht that after
the rational mind of man is freed from the chains of the body, it
assumes an ethereal vehicle, and passes into the regions of the
dead, where it remains till it is sent back to this world to be the
inhabitant of some other body, human or brutal ; and that after
suffering successive purgations, when it is sufficiently purified,
it is received among the gods, and returns to the eternal source
from which it first proceeded.

Ritter says that the sum of the Pythagorean doctrine of im-
mortality was this, — that condition would accurately /bllow char-
acter. Pletho states that the Pythagoreans, as the Platonists
after them, conceived the soul to be a substance not wholly
separate from all body, nor wholly inseparate; but partly separ-
ate, partly inseparate, separable potentially, but ever inseparate
actually.

The later Pythagoreans maintained that the soul has a life
peculiar to itself, which it enjoyed in common with demons or
spirits before its descent to the earth, and that there must be a
degree of harmony between the faculties of the soul and the form
which it assumes : this last is also the idea of Swedenborg.

Plato, in his "Phaedo," maintains pre-existence of the soul be-
fore it appears in man; and of this pre-existent condition it
retains dim reminiscences; and after death, according to its

Plato's doctkinb.

347

peculiar qualities, it seeks and chooses another body. Everj^
soul, according to him, returns to its original source in ten
thousand years. After completing each life, it spends a thou*
sand years in the spiritual world in a condition corresponding to
that life, after which it passes into a new body corresponding to
its ethical quality.

"Plato's conception of the immortality of the soul," says
Grote, " includes pre-existence as well as post-existence ; a per-
petual succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body,
each terminated by death, and* each followed by renewed
life for a time in another body. In fact, the pre-existence of the
mind formed the most important part of Plato's theory about im-
mortality ; for he employed it as the means of explaining how the
mind became possessed of general notions. Not all learning,
but an important part of learning, consists in reminiscence ; not
indeed of acquisitions made in an antecedent life, but of past ex-
perience and judgments in this life. Of such experience and judg-
ments every one has travelled through a large course; which
has disappeared from his memory, yet not irrecoverably. Por-
tions of it may be revived, if new matter be presented to the
mind, fitted to excite the recollection of them, by the laws of
association."

According to Socrates, priests, priestesses, and poets (Pindar
amotig them) tell us that the mind of man is immortal, and has
existed through all past time in conjunction with successive
bodies.

The idea of metempsychosis re-appears in the speculations of
the Neo-Platonists, in the cabala of the Jews, and in the teach-
ings of some of the Church Fathers. Porphyry conceives that it
is to expiate sins committed in a pre-existent state that we are
now clothed with a body, and that as our conduct was more or
less culpable we assume more or less material bodies. By fulfill-
ing exactly and with resignation the duties imposed upon us, we
return by degrees through the state of heroes, angels, archangels,
&c., to the Supreme Being. There is also a descending scale of
diabolical life.

S48

PLANCHBTTB.

The Cabalists thought that the destiny of everjr soul was to
return into mystical union with the divine substance, but that in
order to do this it must 'first develop all the perfections of which
it has the germ within itself. It is sent through life after life till
it acquires all the virtues possible to it.

Origen, bom at Alexandria, a.d. 185, distinctly maintains
the doctrine of metempsychosis, and finds in it the final cause of
creation. In his view, according to Gieseler, the Godhead can
never be idle. Before the present world there was an endless
series of worlds, and an infinite succession of them will follow.
All intellectual beings were originally created alike; but the/
were never without bodies, since incorporeal ity is a peculiar pre-
rogative of Deity. After a great moral inequality had arisen
among them by their diflference of conduct, God created the
present world, which affords a dwelling-place to all classes in
proportion as they answer their moral condition. The fallen in-
tellectual beings he put into bodie& more or less gross, according
to the measure of their sinfulness. Still they all retain their
moral freedom, so that they may rise again from the degraded
circumstances in which they exist. Even the punishments of the
condemned are not eternal, but only remedial ; the devil himself
being capable of amelioration and pardon. When the world
shall have answered its purpose as the abode of fallen spirits, it
will then be destroyed by fire ; and by this very fire souls will be
completely purified from all stains contracted by intimate union
with the body. But as spirits always retain their freedom, they
may also sin again, in which case a new world like this will be
again necessary ; the earths to which incarnated spirits are sent
corresponding to their moral condition.

Evil, according to Origen, is the only thing which has the
foundation of its being in itself and not in God, and which is,
therefore, founded in no being, but is nothing else than an es-
trangement from the true Being, and has only a subjective and
no objective existence at all, and is in itself nothing. Therefore,
he says, "The proposition of the Gnostic, that Satan is no
creature of God, has some truth for its foundation ; namely, this,

ORIGEN*S DOCTRINB.

349

that Satan, in respect to his nature, is a creature of God, but not
as Satan."

Origen set his theory of the pre-existence of souls in opposi-
tion to creationism, which supposed individual souls to arise
from the immediate act of creation on the part of God; for this
theory appeared to him irreconcilable with the love and justice
of God, which maintains itself equally towards all his creatures;
and also in opposition to the traducianism of Tertullian, for this
theory appeared to him too sensuous.

He infers a moral destiny of the embryo, originating in a pre-
existent state, from this fact, among others ; namely, that Jacob
and Esau, while yet unborn, and prior to all earthly agency, are
objects respectively of divine love and hate.

The doctrine of the transmigration of souls as a means of pen-
ance was held by the Manicheans. It also existed among the
ancient Italians, the Celtic Druids, the Scythians and Hyperbo-
reans, and is still entertained. by the heathen nations of Eastern
As.a, the Caucasian, and other tribes. Coupled with the notion
of transmigration into the bodies of brutes, among the ancient
Egyptians it led, as it still does with the Hindoos, to the venera-
tion of certain animals, and the fear of eating their flesh, since
their bodies may be the abode of departed ancestors and friends.
The Pythagoreans would not kill animals, for the same reason.

Origen's notion of earths being created to correspond with the
moral status of the spirits sent to be re-incarnated upon them,
has been recently reproduced in the speculations of an English
clergyman, the Rev. William Hume-Rothery, who furnishes the
following statement of his views on the subject : —

"From the all-good and all-wise Being, who is the only
Creator, nothing of evil and misery can possibly proceed. Yet
in this world, to go no further, we do find an awful amount of
wickedness and wretchedness ; and in nature itself, which none
but God can produce and preserve, there are deadly poisons,
savage and disgusting animals, famines and pestilences, &c.,
which certainly,, according to the judgment that God has given
us, are evils and blemishes in his creation. Now, as there it

350

PUOfCHSTTB.

but one Creator, a Being of spotless puritj and absolute wisdom,
how can evils and malformations and embodied savagery and
consuming maladies and the entire family of wrongs come into
existence ?

"This is the explanation: God, in making man, endows him
with free will, which is essential to manhood. "By virtue of free
will, man can live either according to the will of the Creator, or
he can disobey this ever-righteous will. So far as he obeys the
Creator's will, to that extent he is orderly and happy. But so
far as he opposes the divine will, in that same deg^ree are con-
fusion and misery introduced into his life and world. The soul,
consisting of the will and understanding, is the primary creation,
being that which is usually denominated spirit; the body, which
is the soul itself developed into a bodily form, is the next pro-
ceeding creation; and the world, comprising the three kingdoms
of nature, with all objects of the senses, is the ultimate ground
of creation, which usually goes by the name of mattery in which
the states of the soul are brought down, spread out, and revealed
in a region of space and time. Thus the soul, the body, and
their world are a great unit of life, which assumes form in three
different degrees or planes, but is distinctly one. Thus, too,
spirit and matter, or life and its embodiments, or, which is ex-
actly the same, life and its phenomena, are the beginning and
the ending of a human being ; and all the evils and disfigure-
ments in nature, and all its blessings and beauties, are the em-
bodiments and revealments of blessings and curses in the soul of
man ; good, both vital and phenomenal, flowing from harmo-
nious co-operation with the Lord ; and evil, both spiritual and
natural, being produced by man's violation of the inflowing
creative life of God.

** Such is the universal order of creation. Every natural world
in the universe is the effectuated life and outward revelation of a
world of created beings. Dream-land is thus created. All poet-
ical imagery is brought forth after this manner. The wild fan-
cies of the drunkard, which are called deliriur^ tremens^ burst
into existence in this way. The phenomena, of death owe their

PRS-aXtSTBNCB.

birth to corresponding changes of mental state. The human
soul — willing and thinking here on the lowest platform of life,
viz., that of effects — when indrawn by the Lord into a deeper
ground of affection and thought, viz., that of causes, is evolved
into a corresponding body and a corresponding world, in which
latter its inmost states are represented in detail, as in the body
they are represented in the sum."

On the subject of pre-existence, Cudworth, in his " Intellectual
System" (1678), remarks: " It is well known that, according to
the sense of antiquity, these two considerations were always in-
cluded in that one opinion of the soul's immortality; namely,
its pre-existence as well as its post-existence. Neither were
there ever any of the ancients before Christianity, that held the
souFs future permanency after death, who did not likewise assert
its pre-existence, — they clearly perceiving that if it was once
granted that the soul was generated, it could never be proved
but that it might be corrupted. And therefore the assertors of
its immortality commonly began here, — first, to prove its pre-
existence, proceeding thence afterwards to establish its perma-
nency after death."

" To admit," says Schopenhauer (1820), ** that that which has
not existed during an infinite period, must yet continue to exist
during all eternity, is certainly a very bold hypothesis. That
only which has had no commencement, or is truly eternal, can
alone be indestructible. The Hindoos are more consistent.
While they admit a continuation of existence after death, they
also believe in a life anterior to our birth in this world, and de-
clare that all which is, is eternal."

On the contrary, Irenaeus dogmatically remarks : If any per-
son maintain that those souls which only began a little while
ago to exist cannot endure for any length of time, but that they
must on the one hand either be unborn in order that they may
be immortal ; or, if they have had a beginning in the way of gen-
eration, that they should die with the body itself, — let them
learn that God alone, who is Lord of all, is without beginning
and without end "

3S»

PLANQHXTTK.

« Christianity," says Mr. J. W. Jackson, " notwithsUnding tiic
large infusion* of Hellenism by which it is characterized, is still
so essentially Judaic in some of its aspects, that it has never yet
dared to promulgate the great Platonic veracity of pre-existence
(the necessary correlate of post-existence), save in connection
with its founder, the presumable incarnation of the eternal
Logos. . . . Will a logically and metaphysically trained people
be satisfied with the absurd assurance that an everlasting exist-
ence can have had a beginning in time? . . . The Christian will
have to learn that his boasted doctrine of immortality is but a
half-truth, the mere hemisphere of the sublime veracity that man,
like his divine Father, is not only immortal but also eternalJ*

With regard to the objection that so much must be obliterated
from man's memory before he can be born with his anterior ex-
periences all a blank, it may be answered that the facts of som-
nambulism and double consciousness offer numerous analogies
with such a dispensation. Every experienced physiologist must
know instances wherein whole tracts of memory, extending
through periods of many years, have, by physical accident or
disease, been suddenly obliterated, and, after a long suspense,
been as suddenly restored. The cases are numerous of aged
persons, who, in their dying moments, have been able to con-
verse in languages which they had utterly forgotten since their
early childhood.

. It may be interesting to note what the great Swedish seer has
to say on this subject of pre-existence. Swedenborg's explana-
tion is as follows : " It is not allowed that any angel or spirit
should speak with man from his own memory, but only from
the man's. If a spirit were to speak with a man from his own
memory, the man would appropriate the spirit's memory as his
own, and his mind would become confused with the recollection
of things he had never experienced. In consequence of the
memories of spirits getting muddled with men's, some of the
gifckmts conceived the idea that they had existed in another realm
tUW'iT their birth on earth. Thus they accounted for the
^loggBg^Bli of memories which they were sure had not originated
fc«*«ty experience."

cahagnet'a thbory.

353

This law, it is suggested, will serve as a reply to the frequent
complaint that in spiritual communications we have nothing
new or extra-human.

It is the theory of Andrew Jackson Davis, the highly esteemed
American seer, that memory is something more than a mental
faculty of registration ; that the mind is a compound of eternal
principles, each of which being from God, and of God, is self-
intelligent, from which intelligence memory is inseparable.
Thus, Davis holds the doctrine of the pre-existence of the
psychical principle, though not of that of the individualized
spirit. He teaches that all souls existed from the beginning
in the divine soul ; all individuality which is, has. been, or will
be, had its pre-existence, has its present existence in creative
being." Thus our soul-matter " had an existence, but not a
conscious existence, before we came on this earth. But may we
not say the same of all " soul - matter," whether of men or
brutes ?

M. Cahagnet. author of " Arcanes de la Vie Future D^voil^,"
bases his pneumatology on communications supposed to be
from spirits, and obtained through clairvoyants and somnambu-
lists. He admits pre-existence, but no re-incarnation. It is his
theory that all the souls in the universe were created by God at
once, and are eternal, as well as immortal ; that they were all
placed in worlds of perfect happiness, but yet not with all their
affections and faculties called forth ; and that they are sent down
to worlds of material life for discipline, and to make them the
better appreciate the heaven which they will soon regain ; for
without experi^ce of evil they cannot properly estimate the
good.

He does not admit the notion of the non-existence of space
and time in the spirit-world ; says that if spirits occupied no
space, they would be nothing ; and if there were no time, there
could be no succession of events. These errors, he says, arise
from the fact that the rapid action of spirits is incalculable by
our time. It is also an error that spirits can be in several places
at the same time ; but they can transfer themselves from place

354

PLANCHBTTX.

to place with such speed, and can communicate with other
spirits in such rapid succession, that it seems to take place at
once. A spirit can see the whole of his existence in a moment,
as has been experienced repeatedly by drowning persons. Sir
Humphrey Davy, while under the effect of the nitric-oxide gas,
exclaimed, The whole human organism is an assemblage of
thoughts."

In our remarks on fsyckomeiryy in a future chapter, this sub-
ject will be considered further.

In his " Conflict of Ages," Dr. Edward Beecher advocates the
doctrine of pre-existence in the interests of the " Orthodox"
theology, and in the hope of removing the causes of paralysis
and division from our common Christianity." We have seen
(page 303) that in many of the communications supposed to
come from spirits, moral evil is regarded as a means of educa-
tion. In the philosophy of Hegel (where "each his dogma
finds a similar view is taken of sin, as being not only inci-
dent to human nature, but one of the appointed means of its
development and advancement. Origen, too, regarded all
God's penalties as simply remedial, and believed in the ulti-
mate restoration of all souls. But to these views the large
majority of Christian theologians are, as we have seen, opposed.
Dr. Beecher himself says, "The multitudes who are saved owe
eternal life to the free grace of God. All who are lost perish
entirely by their own original revolt from God, persisted in duf
ing this life"

^ Again he remarks, " It has been conceded repeatedly, that the
acts ascribed to God, in his dealings with the human race
through Adam, do appear dishonorable and unjust, according
to any principles of equity and honor which God has made the
mind of man to form. And yet, simply on the basis of Rom. v.
12-19, and without any adequate search for a more legitimate
mode of interpretation, good men have for ages gone on to
ascribe these acts to God. . . . Notice, then, the full confession
of the great body of the Church, that the only defence against
the charge of doing this has been the theory that all men had

REYNAUto.

355

forfeited their rights as new-created beings, by * an act over which
they had not the slightest control, and in which they had no
agency,' and which took place before they existed ; and also the
confession of Calvin, that nothing 4S so remote from common
sense as this defence ; and of Pascal, that nothing appears so
revolting to our reason. . . . And, now, is it nothing practical
that pre-existence can deliver the Church at once from such a state
of things f*^

Dr. Beecher is solicitous for the deliverance of the Church
from a dilemma that outrages his reason. But a deliverance
that would still require the hypothesis of an eternity of hell tor-
ments for nine-tenths of the human race, is hardly an improve-
ment on the theology that would make us all subject to damnation
because of the sin of Adam. Reason asks for a more " practi-
cal ** exhibition than that which Dr. Beecher's plan would sup-
ply of the resdurces of Infinite Wisdom and Love.

It is with a sense of relief, therefore, that we turn from his
ingenious attempt to extenuate the theological notion of eternal
damnation by grafting on it the doctrine of pre-existence, to the
celebrated Terre et Ciel " (Earth and Heaven) of Jean-Ernest
Reynaud (born 1806). This eloquent writer goes far to exhaust
both the theological and the philosophical argument in behalf
of pre-existence. He believes in the continuity of human life
through successive incarnations, with the perpetual progress of
nature and of man towards God, always infinitely removed.

In no other work on the subject are the objections to pre-
existence so ably met, or the theory itself made so attractive by
the charms of a persuasive style and by appropriate exposi-
tions, scientific, historical, and religious.

" Terre et Ciel " has been ably reviewed, if not answered, by
M. Caro in his '^I^tudes Morales sur le Temps Present;" and
has called forth the denunciations of some of the doctors and
bishops of the Church. To these Reynaud has replied in a man-
ner to indicate that, in theological discussion, he is entirely
at home. He shows that the Church has left this subject of pre-
existence an open question; and that St. Augustine himself,

356

plAnchettx.

who is sometimes quoted against it, had not, in his old age,
made up his mind in regard to it.

Rejnaud utterly rejects the theological notion of hell. This
earth he regards as a specimen of the only kind of hell to which
God will subject his children, and the object of his placing us
here is not penal, but disciplinary and with a view to progress.
Reynaud does not agree with Origen that we are here in the
waj of a descent from what we have been in an anterior life.
On the contrary, we are here in an ascending^ passage.

" We are not," says Reynaud, " sinners because we are the
sons of Adam : we are the sons of Adam because we are sin-
ners." It may be more gratifying to our self-love to think that
we are suflfering here through the fault of Adam rather than
through our own ; but T)y such a sentiment we derog^ate from
divine justice.

From the infinity of the universe, Reynaud argues in favor of
his system. The infinity of creation is an earnest of the immor
tality of intellectual beings. The very g^eat and the very little
are both conditioned alike in view of infinity. Strong in the
consciousness of our spiritual dignity, we may feel ourselves
superior to all merely material grandeurs, however stupendous,
and we may look upon the vortices of the firmament, with its
systems behind systems, with the same regard that we look on
whirlwinds of dust.

Let us not suppose that these immense separations between
planetary worlds and systems, which, in view of the velocity of
our freed spirits, have hardly the thickness of partitions, are
insuperable abysses. It is not to the soul that they are barriers,
but only to those organs to which our souls are temporarily
united. All these worlds are but one for the immortal soul.
Thanks to that infinity in which mere plurality is lost, the
principle of unity, overshadowed for an instant by that of
number, re-assumes the plenitude of its empire; and, as there
is but one God, there is but one heaven. The fixity of this
heaven is in the unalterable order of its changes ; its incorrupti-
bility is in its permanence ; its immateriality is in the immensity

THE THEOLOGICAL HELL.

357

of its extent. And this earth which we tread under our feet;
where we come, turn by turn, to accomplish our task, in com-
pany with our kind ; upon which we appear, without remember-
ing whence we come ; from which we disappear, without knowing
whither we go ; where we live, without being able to say with
certainty who or what we are, — this earth rolls through the
heavens, is one of the elements of the heavens, and constitutes
us residents of the heavenly expanse. Let us give back to re-
ligion the eloquent words which Kepler, breaking through the
vaults of the antique firmament, traced as a line of light in his
"Harmonies," to illumine astronomical science for ever: Hoc
entm coslnm est^ in quo vivimus et movemur et sutnus, nos et omnia
mundana corpora^ — "For this is heav^, in which we live and
move and are, we and all mundane bodies."
The lot assigned to us on earth, Reynaud tells us, is far more
. tolerable than that which would be ours in the theological
heaven, were it out of our power to aid still in mitigating suffer-
ing and evil ; for here, in spite of all the obstacles that impede
us, we are free at least to yield to the noble instinct which bids
us help all suffering creatures ; free to expect confidently from the
bounty of God the end of all that evil, the view of which afflicts
us. The thought of relatives, friends, fellow-creatures, suffering
in hell while we, on our heavenly heights, had no power to help
them, would be like that paralysis we have in nightmare, when
we cannot move to avert some terrible danger, and when we
strive to cry out in our despair. Such a state would itself be
the most frightful of punishments ; and so Reynaud repudiates
the common theological notion of hell as blasphemous, revolt-
ing, unsound.

"While waiting," says Reynaud, "the illuminations of the
higher life, I content myself with concluding, from the ordinary
simplicity of Providence in the execution of his designs, that
the souls of the departed will find themselves carried where
their merits or demerits may make it fitting, by means as easy
and spontaneous as those which govern matter; mounting of
their own accord to a higher condition or descending to a lower^

358

PUOVCHBTTS.

conformably to fhe rules of justice, in the same manner m
bodies, by reason of their variations in weig^ht, mount or descend
in our atmosphere. . . .

" If, in the succession of the various phases of our immo^
tality, repose may sometimes become the recompense of the
just, it must be on condition of its being but a transient alterna-
tive; a refreshment, as it were, after fatigtie, and serving to
repair the strength for new and nobler eflforts."

In opposition to the general theological notion, he maintains
that the superior life, instead of being one of passive beatitude,
will be one of sovereign activity; and the more active, the more
elevated it is ; that is to say, the more nearly akin to that divine
model whose life overflows with an indefatigable activity through
all the worlds.*

"And so heaven is not a permanent dwelling: it is a road;
and the celestial hierarchy which fills it, ascends unceas-
ingly, like a column of incense. But what fate awaits us at
the extremity of this road? And what is the end of all this
movement? Is it God, within whose abysses souls go succes-
sively to merge themselves, as the theologians of Bouddha, in
their insensate mysticism, have dreamed; and not only they,
but many others, who, even under the discipline of the Church,
misled by an imaginary love of God, have fallen into a like
spiritual suicide?

*' It is just here that Christianity triumphs; for on this capital
question it is Christianity alone that gives us the true lesson.
No, says this superior religion : it is not God who occupies
this mysterious summit; it is God and man together; it is the
simultaneous type of the two natures ; it is the God-Man ; and,
if the theologian will have his own expression, it is the divine
exemplar, Jesus Christ. And so, even at this inaccessible sum-

* Reynaud's language here reminds us of a remarkable passage in the writings of
Origen, where he attributes all existence, whether of men or of the lower animals, to ** the
exuberant fulness of life in the Deity, which, through the blessed necessity of hia
communicative nature, empties itself into all possibilities of beings as into so many
receptacles."

REYNAUD.

359

mit) it is always man; man conceived by faith in the double
perfection of his personal development and of his personal
union with the second hypostasis; man, finally, such as he is
when in perfect accord with and well - pleasing to God. Man
is therefore the master of his own endless elevation. At any
degree in his sublime ascension, neither does his personality,
nor his activity, nor his perfectibility have a tendency to be
engulfed and lost ; for always, high above him, he sees the ideal
of man, the ineffable archetype of creation, the common model
of' all the free beings of the universe. . . .

**But shall friends and relatives be re-united? Nothing can
prevent our so ordering our existences as to travel for ever in
company, through the abysses of the universe, with all those
we love.

" Friends, relatives, parents, if you have profoundly at heart
the wish not to lose one another by death, bind yourselves to-
gether in the same life, the same morality, and the same hopes ;
and you will rejoin one another there above, even as you were
associated here. ...

Even in our birth we are free, for it is we who determine the
conditions. If we resemble our parents, it is because we resem-
bled them virtually before we were born. If we find ourselves
in prosperous or adverse circumstances, it is because these are
such as are best adapted to our progress and our needs. Let us
be consoled therefore in the thought that there is no fatality
weighing upon us ; that there are no evils to which we are now
subjected, from which we may not, by the good government of
our actions, deliver ourselves radically at death." . . .

But what shall we say of our ignorance f " Not only is
memory powerless in regard to the times that preceded our
birth into this world, but it is not capable of representing to us
even the times that followed that event. It tells us nothing
of the period passed at the maternal bosom. It fails us in a
multitude of instances. Beyond the cradle all is as dark as be-
yond the tomb.' . . .

"And yet who shall venture to say that our being may not

360

PLAKCHBTTX.

contain within its profundities the wherewith to illumine some
day all those spaces successivelj traversed bjr us since our first
hour? Do we not find, even in the experiences of this present
life, that certain recollections, which seemed absolutely extin-
guished, revive all at once, and render back to us a past which
we had supposed lost for ever?"

The facts of Spiritualism, as we ^hall see in a succeeding
chapter, abundantly confirm the hypothesis here suggested.
And, were it not so, is it so certain that our ideMtity is abso-
lutely dependent on the formal presentations of our memory f
" Do we," says Pierre Lerouz, " in any phenomenon whatsoever
of our lives, have at the same time memory of all preceding phe-
nomena?" No, he replies: we are then occupied with a certain
object, and our anterior life escapes us ; and memory is but a
past fact of our life perceived by us as present. Therefore our
identity, our personality, our eg'o, is not a product of memory.
To remember is but an accidental phenomenon of this ego, the
same as to perceive, to see, to judge, &c. . . . "But why," asks
Chaseray, " may not the memory, like the attention, the medita-
tive faculty, the judgment, like all the intellectual faculties we
possess, and like all the new ones we may acquire, follow the law
of progress, and, from life to life, go on improving and gaining
in extent?" Analogy shows that this may well be.

We continue our quotations from Jean Reynaud : —

"That astonishing faculty then which we call memory, is of a
nature to preserve for us in the depths of our being, and un-
known to ourselves, impressions which, from the fact of their
having momentarily ceased to be disposed in a manner to come
up at our appeal, continue none the less to make part of our do-
main, where they abide, as it were, dormant; and hence, whv
should it not be the same with the action of this faculty in
regard to events which have preceded the actual period of our
existence here? . . .

** The body, through the senses with which it is furnished,
is needed for conveying impressions to the soul ; but as to the
preservation of those impressions, that is no longer the body's

RBYNAUD.

361

affair. It is the soul which has received ; it is the soul which
keeps them.

" Our own experience offers confirmation of the fact. Is there
in the organs, by means of which we are to-day in communica-
tion with the universe, I will not say simply a single molecule,
but a single form, which belonged to the organs which served us
in infancy? Since that period, how many bodies has not our
vital faculty taken to itself, used, dissipated ! And yet, in spite
of all these mutations, does not the soul preserve its memory?
How many things there are on which I had not thought for
years, which I had let fall completely from my remembrance,
but which, all at once, in association with places or with per-
sons, or roused by an effort of attention, start up and re-appear
to me I Is there not here an indication of what may be produced
hereafter in sublime proportions ?

"Notwithstanding those apparent interruptions of such mo- •
ment to us, and which the vulgar in trembling call deaths our
life, considered not in its earth-bound span of a day, to which
the prejudices of our education reduce it, but in tts infinite line,
is in reality as continuous in all its development as in the short
period laid bare to us between the cradle and the tomb. . . .

** In admitting even what our present experience may lead us
to conclude in regard to the suspension of all remembrance of
anterior existences, — this, namely, that death must produce on
unprepared natures the effect of a heavy blow, and that, in strik-
ing, it stuns the memory, — yet to stun it, is not to annihilate it.
After a suspension of days, months, or years, the memory may
recover itself. The fact that we may have no reminiscence of
anterior existences now is no reason why we may not have it at
some future time. . . . ,

*' Each one of us carries in his actual form and organism the
secret history of his anterior emotions ; so accurately, that spirit-
ual eyes, penetrating to the depths of our being, see at a glance
all that we have been in all that we are.

"Our history therefore is not only in that Book of Life which
theologians put in the hands of God ; it is inscribed in our very

36a

PLANCHETTE.

substance ; our being itself is the unfailing record we carry with
us, from stage to stage, through the -worlds. . . .

" It is wholly arbitrary to suppose that immortality preserves
life without preserving at the same time the faculty of repentance
equally with all others. The quibbles by which we may try to
justify the hypothesis of the abandonment of the damned, may
be employed with equal force to support the idea that God ought
to abandon, without remission, every culpable soul, even in this
life. The culpable soul is not blinded more irremediably after
having passed through death than it was before ; for death is but
an accident, as incapable of changing the nature of the soul as of
changing the disposition of God. That which the soul was on
the eve of death, it will be the next day. . . .

" In reflecting on the spectacle of the universe, such as it pre-
sents itself to us from the point of view of modern times, it seems
• to me that the mind is naturally disposed to conclude that there
must exist a first series of worlds more or less analogous to this
earth, in which the souls of men, at their entrance on the limit-
less career which opens before them, still frail and not attaching
themselves firmly enough to the laws of duty, find themselves
exposed to the discipline of temptation, succumb to it or else
triumph over it; little by little advance, in the way of ameliora-
tion, from one world to another, in the midst of trials always
proportioned to the degree of feebleness and culpability, and
arrive at last, after labors more or less prolonged, at the merit
of being admitted into the worlds of the higher series. There
shall be accomplished the definitive deliverance from all evil :
the love of the good shall henceforth be so paramount that no
one shall lapse from it; but all, on the contrary, animated by the
desire of elevating themselves, and seconded in their efforts by
the incessant grace of God and the co-operation of the blissful
societies in the bosom of which they live amid all the splendors
of nature, shall display to this end the activity of all their vir-
tues, and draw nearer by a continual progress, more or less rapid,
according to the energy of each individual, to the infinite type
of perfection. . . .

ADVOCATES OF TRANSMIGRATION. 363

** It is impossible not to recognize that there is no tradition
which throws a light so clear as this on the ideas of liberty, of
personality, of imnwrtahty. Delivered from all arbitrary con-
straint, man presents h'imself as the direct author •f his destiny :
not the sport of fatality, not the victim of original sin, it is the
individual himself who has determined in an anterior life the ini-
tial conditions of his present life, even as he is to determine in this
the conditions of his life to come ; and the terrestrial world, with
its diversities of good and of evil, gives us the image of that
world we nm the risk of entering to-morrow, unless we have
known how to qualify ourselves for something higher. Above
the region of troubled and confused existences in which forgetful-
ness takes place, from re-birth to re-birth, expands the region of
luminous existences, in which memory, acquiring all its force,
renders to each, with the full possession of his past, the full
identity of his person, his completed individuality."

Such is the theodicy of "Terre et Ciel." If the author is not
always successful in his endeavor to make his liberal philosophy
harmonize with the theology of the Church by compelling old
dogmas to assume a new and spiritual aspect, we cannot deny to
him the merit of investing this ancient theory of the pre-exist-
ence and transmigration of souls with a fresh sfnd abiding inter-
est. His work has passed through six editions in France, and is
deserving of an English version. In our own renderings of
detached passages, we have done it but slender justice.

Pierre Leroux, the associate of Reynaud in editing a philo-
sophical dictionary, was an eloquent advocate of the doctrine
of the transmigration of souls. Of. recent French works, in
which the same doctrine is proclaimed, we have **Du Spiritual-
isme Rationnel, par G. H. Love (1862);" "La Raison du
Spiritisme, par Michel Bonnamy (1868);" "Conferences sur
TAme, par Alexandre Chaseray (1868)." The author of the last-
named work does not appear to either admit or deny the recent
phenomena. From his two concluding pages, we quote the fol-
lowing risumi of his views : —

" All discussion relative to Deity, to the government of the

3^4

PLANCHETTE.

world, to the ori^n and end of things, can result in nothing
conclusive, for its object surpasses the reach of human intelli-
gence. Besides, every proposition of this nature is of a second-
ary interest f©r man. Upon all these points, I declare myself a
positivist. In my opinion, the only question veritably important
in philosophy, consists in knowing whether tue have an immortal
soul. I am still so far a positivist in this, that I dismiss the
Spiritualism of St. Thomas and of Descartes as undemonstrated
and un demonstrable, and that I recognize the method of physical
observation as alone capable of conducting- to certitude. But
science is as yet very uncertain ; and I cannot resig^n myself to
wait, when the question for us is between nothingness and
eternal life. I have then, provisionally, recourse to those meta-
physical reasonings which render as very probable the continu-
ance of the soul at death. I attach myself with ardor to thai
verity which physiology, I do not doubt, will one day make clear
to all.

"This capital point, immortality, bein^ then sufficiently
established by metaphysics, we remain in the presence of two
principal systems in respect to the destiny of the soul : that
of one single life followed by an eternity of recompenses or of
chastisements; and that of an indefinite series of re-births, per-
mitting a progress slow and continuous.

"Justice, reason, good sense, militate in favor of this latter
system, which I adopt, in company with a crowd of emerited
thinkers. And so the immortality of the soul, the universal
solidarity of intelligent beings, their free will, and their succes-
sive transformations, according to the good or bad exercise of
this free will, — such is my philosophical programme. My
thought, firmly established on this basis, remains calm and
serene, and has so remained through long years, catching
glimpses of a future without end, and of felicities less sudden,
less abruptly marvellous than those of the Christian heaven,
but which satisfy both my reason and my taste more fully, and
of which the hope is not counterbalanced by the frightful risk
of a fall to the bottom of an infernal abyss."

INSTINCTIVE ASPIRATIONS.

In his way to these conclusionSi Chaseray says, —
I shall not invoke the reasoning which consists in saying,
'The soul is a substance simple, immaterial, and indivisible;
consequently it cannot perish, since death is a decomposition, a
disjunction of parts.' This reasoning is good only for Spiritual-
ists,* for it accepts as admitted a contested point ; this, namely,
that there exist immaterial substances, and that the soul is an
immaterial substance.

Here, you see the weak side of metaphysics. It reasons ; but
as it is compelled to take its stand on an hypothesis, a sup-
position, we ruin its reasoning in contesting the truth of its
premises. . . .

" A proof of the duration of the soul, which is more gen-
erally admitted, is that which springs from the aspiration of
man towards the Infinite. The aspiration of a being, it is
said, is the measure of its destiny. Now, the aspirations of man
being without bounds, it follows that his destiny, too, is limit-
less.

**M. Flourens draws a similar conclusion from the infinite
problems which the human mind strives in vain to solve.
* These problems,* he says, * which wfi cannot solve in this
world, must have their solution in another ;' and here, if I
mistake not, we have one of the surest signs that there is
another.*".

" Where, in the plan of creation,*' asks Reimar, " do we find
instincts falsified? Where do we see an instance of a creature
instinctively craving a certain kind of food, in a place where no
such food can be found? Are the swallows deceived by their
instinct when they fly away from clouds and storms to seek a
warmer country? . . . Yes: the voice of Nature does not utter
false prophecies. . . . And if this be true with regard to the
impulses of physical life, why should it not be true with regard
to the superior instincts of the soul ? "

* By S^irihtaitsiSy Chaseray here means those who are such through metaphysics ;
not Spiritualists through the phenomena of somnambulism, and the powers manifested
by mediums, seers, &c.

366

PLANCHETTE.

Chaseray objects to that refined Spiritualism which would
reject all notion of actual space -filling substance. Because
anatomists can detect nothing that leaves the body after death,
he does not admit that nothing may actually be disengaged.
To combat the notions of the extreme materialists, who deny
the existence of a soul, he becomes himself a material/sty to a cer-
tain extent; that is to say, he considers man as composed of two
principal elements, a body and a soul, of which the one, aftei
death, remains, by its very grossness, perceptible to the eye,
and which follows the dissolution of its parts and their transfor-
mation into new principles, animal or vegetable, and of which
the other escapes the view and the touch by its subtilty. "Let
us distrust," he says, " our imperfect senses : there are so many
substances which we can neither see nor feel ! Let us not go so
far as to deny the duality of the human being, because the
scalpel of the anatomist is impotent to make a principle emi-
nently subtile reveal itself to our eyes.

"If this principle really exists, and if the soul is material,
does it necessarily follow that it is mortal? No: man is not
necessarily pushed into nothingness in the hypothesis of mate-
riality. * Though man should be wholly nothing but matter,*
says Charles Bonnet, in his * Essai Analytique,* * he would be
none the less perfect, none the less a candidate for immortality.*
This was also the opinion of George Salzcr, who sought to
prove that the immortality of the soul does not depend exclu-
sively on its simplicity; that a materialist, who admits a soul
distinct from the body, might attribute to this soul another life
after our terrestrial death.**

It is, then, through mistake, that some writers maintain th^t
if the soul survives the body, it must be because it is imma'
tcrial. The question of immortality is not necessarily bound
up in that of spirituality. The philosophers of antiquity, and all
the early Fathers of the Church, believed in a material or cor-
poreal soul ; and, among the moderns who believed the same,
we may cite Averro^s, Politian, Pomponatius, Cardan, Viviani,
Hobbes.

MATTBK AND SPIRIT.

" Our soul," says Irenaeus, " is not incorporeal except in com-
parison with gross bodies." "The matter of the soul consists
in heat," says Lactantius. ** The soul is nothing, if it is not a
body," says Tertullian. Nihil, si ftou corpus ! In the third cen-
tury, Roger Bacon recognized a spiritual matter and a corporeal
matter, a spiritual form and a corporeal form. It was St.
Thomas Aquinas who first introduced into the Church the doc-
trine of pure Spiritualism ; and, according to him, millions of
spirits might find room to dance on the point of a needle. Des-
cartes did the same for philosophy.

From the writings of Cabanis, Broussais, and Azais, the lead-
ing materialists of the early part of this century, Chaseray
says that passages favorable to the idea of an immortal soul
may be produced. Cabanis, for example, who sees nothing but
organism, who explains all by organism, who regards the brain
"as an organ . designed specially to produce thought, as the
stomach and intestines are to accomplish digestion, the liver to
filtrate bile," &c., cannot at last avoid the declaration, that
to bring all this about, to give life to this carcass, there must be
" a principle or vivifying faculty which nature fixes in the germs
or spreads in the seminal fluids." In a posthumous letter, he is
still more explicit. "It is impossible for us to affirm," he says,
" that the dissolution of the organs involves that of the moral
system, and, above all, of the cause which renders us susceptible
of perception ; since we do not know it in any manner, and in
all probability are interdicted from ever Jcnowing it. Now, it
suffices for those who would establish the persistence of this
cause after the destruction of the living body, that the contrary
opinion cannot be demonstrated by positive arguments.

Rather more modest was the profound Cabanis than the im-
petuous Messrs. Vogt, Biichner, and Moleschott, who cannot
repress their indignation because people will still heed this old
wives' story of a future state.

M. Azais is a materialist of a still more decided type ; and he
says, " The soul which resides in the central part of the brain
is formed by the agency of the organs of sense, and by the

36S

Pl-ANCHETTE.

magnetic commerce of these organs with external beings." And
yet this philosopher does not draw from his premises the con-
clusion which we might expect ; namely, that the destruction
of the organs involves the dispersion of ideas and the complete
annihilation of the intelligent being. On the contrary, he says,
** While time enfeebles, alters, destroys the body of the sage, it
perfects his soul; and this progress indicates a high destiny.
It is, in reality, the soul of the sage which is the ultimate object
of the composition of the world; it is the soul of the sage
which ought to be strengthened and preserved by the laws
which govern the universe. No other result would be worthy
of this sublime work."

The physiologists, too, are claimed by Chaseray in support of
his views.

Charles Bonnet, the great naturalist and physiologist (1720-
1793), believed, like most modern Spiritualists, that to maintain
the human personality, which must consist, above all, in the
memory, and to maintain a link between the present and the
future state of man, there must be an ethereal and indestructible
body to which the soul remains united after death, and which is
the germ of the new body destined to peifect the faculties of
man in another life.

M. Flourens has declared that the " bad philosophies must
not pretend to find their support in physiology."

Alfred Maury, after allowing these words to escape him,
namely, "The intelligence is, after all, a function of the brain,"
hastens to add, in a note, "I do not pretend to deny the action
of the soul, but I would remark that this action is always closely
connected with the play of the organism."

Milne Edwards says, that he does not regard the organiza-
tion as being all in the economy of living bodies.

M. Gratiolet writes, "The system which best satisfies com-
mon sense, is that which admits the individuality of souls and
their existence independently of a certain body."

Finally, the celebrated professor, Rodolph Wagner, says at
G6ttingen, in the midst of an assembly of savants, " The moral

HOSTILE CAMPS OF SCIBNCE. 369

which flows from materialism is this : Let us eat and drink; to-
morrow we shall .be no more.*'

Other savants, somewhat numerous, it must be admitted, the
Vogts, Rostans, Biichners, Robins, Moleschotts, persist in see-
ing in the phenomenon of thought nothing more than a cere-
bral function, a pure effect of organism.

^ "To think without a brain," objects M. Etienne Vacherot,
" seems to me as great a miracle as to feel without a nervous
system, and to perceive without organs."

"And yet," retorts Chaseraj, " this sort of miracle is accom-
plished every day ; and the least contested phenomena of som-
nambulism and animal magnetism subvert the biological notions
based on the ordinary state of man. The organism would seem
to be the instrument indispensable for the exercise and develop-
ment of the faculties of the soul, rather than the condition neces-
sary for the existence of these same faculties. Without organism,
the soul is in repose; it may be compared to the engineer with-
out a locomotive to conduct, or the musician without an instru-
ment on which to perform.

"This hesitation of science, /^i5 division of the doctors into
two camps, denotes the absence of positive proofs on either side,
and consequently leaves subsisting in their entirety the meta-
physical and moral proofs which make the immortality of the
soul so probable. We must not allow ourselves to be imposed
on by the audacity of these organizationists"

If M. Chaseray would acquaint himself with the great facts
recorded in this volume, he would see that the " audacity" of
these organizationists is, as we have shown from their own ad-
missions, wholly based on their denial, or, as we contend, their
ignorance, of phenomena known at this time to several million
intelligent contemporaries.

But M. Chaseray is not without hope of a scientific proof of
the fact of the soul's immortality. He says, "The day when
physiology shall have proved the existence of the soul, shall
have made it appear that an incorruptible substance separates
itself at death from the discarded organism, this proposition

370

PLANCHETTB.

will pass from the domain of metaphysics into that of the posi-
tive sciences ; from probable it will become certain. I do not
despair of this success."

Christian Garve, a German writer (1742-1798), seems to have
entertained a belief not unfavorable to the theory of progressive
existences. He writes, "The greatest encouragement to intel-
lectual progress arises from our belief in one supreme Fountain
of Wisdom, toward which we may continually advance ; while,
as we reverently approach that Source of mental light, the
obscurities hanging about our present defective vision will
gradually pass away. Without such a faith, I must look upon
the world from a melancholy point of view.

" I behold around me a vast universe crowded with innumera-
ble objects of interest, all possessing powers and qualities of
which myself and my fellow-creatures can only understand a
minute part.

"Is there not a Supreme Mind which comprehends the whole
more perfectly than we understand the minutest portions of it?
If I doubt this, how hopeless must appear my efforts toward
intellectual satisfaction ! For how can I, in my short life, hope
to gain, by the slow process of experimental inquiry, a knowl-
edge of this vast world around me, or to answer the deepest
questions which my own rational nature suggests ? If myself,
and other finite creatures like myself, are the only intellectual
beings, how little can we ever know of ourselves and of the
universe 1

" Is it not more cheering to believe that the rays of light in
our own mind descend from one central Sun, than to imagine
that our finite minds are the only illumined spots amid a wide
creation left in darkness? ... If this picture of* the world were
true, what proportion would there be between the rnassive and
innumerable objects of material nature, and the few intellectual
beings called mankind I . . . Let us believe that as our feeble
corporeal frames are surrounded and supported by a vast mate-
rial world, so our finite minds are under the sway of an infinite
intellectual Power. We shall now see a just proportion between

AN AMERICAN PLATONIST.

37»

mind and matter. The world now becomes a noble object of
unceasing study. The attainment of truth appears, at least
possible."

Among those American Spiritualists who accept the pure
Platonic doctrine of pre-existence, if not of metempsychosis,
we may mention A. Bronson Alcott, a rare example, in these
times, of the veritable sage. He writes : " Every creature at;sists
in its own formation, souls being essentially creative, and crav-
ing form. ... .

"Throughout the domain of spirit, desire creates substance,
wherein all creatures seek conjunction, lodging, and nurture.
Nor is there any thing in nature, save desire, holding substances
together; all things being dissolvable and'recombin<able in this
spiritual menstruum. . . .

"Under the sway of occult forces we partake of preternatural
insights, having access to sources of information unopened to
us in our wakeful hours. Vast systems of sympathies, ante-
dating and extending beyond our mundane experiences, absorb
us within their sphere, relating us to other ^Korlds of life and
light.

*' For never is the sleep so profound, the dream so distracting,
as to obliterate all sense of the personality; despite these
vagaries of the night, these opiates of the senses, memory
sometimes dispels the oblivious slumbers, and recovers for the
mind recollections of its descent and destiny. Some reliques
of the ancient consciousness survive, recalling our previous his-
tory and experiences. . . .

"Ancient of days, we hardly are persuaded to believe that
our souls are no older than our bodies, and to date our nativity
from our famify registers, as' if time and space could chronicle
the periods of the immortal mind by its advent into the flesh
and decease out of it. . . .

" None of us remember when we did not remember, when
memory was nought and ourselves were unborn. Memory is
the premise of our sensations : it dates our immortality. . . .

** Moreover, the insatiableness of our desires asserts our per-

37^

PLANCHETTK.

sonal imperishableness. Yearning for full satisfactions, while
balked of these perpetually, we still prosecute our search for
them, our faith in their attainment remaining unshaken under
every disappointment. Our hope is eternal as ourselves, — a
never-ending, still-beginning quest of our divinity. Infinite in
essence, we crave it in potence. The boundlessness and elas-
ticity of the mind, its power of self-recovery, uprise from tem-
porary obstructions, self-imposed or from temperament, are
assurances made doubly sure of our soul's infinitude and lon-
gevity. . . .

" 'Every thing aspires to its own perfection, and is restless till
it attain it, — as the trembling needle till it find its beloved
north. And the knowledge of this is innate as is the desire,
else the last had been a torment and needless importunity.
Nature shoots not at rovers. Even inanimate things,' while
ignorant of their perfection, are carried toward it by a blind
impulse. But that which conducts them knows. The next
order of beings have some sight of it, and man most perfectly
till he touch th^r apple.* Our delights suckle us life- long, our
desires being memories of past satisfactions; and we here but
sip pleasures once tasted to satiety. ...

*' Still heaven is, our hearts affirm against every disappoint-
ment; and whether behind or before us, as memory or as hope,
'tis to be ours; our port and resting-place sometime in the
stream of ages."

The poets have often availed themselves of the Platonic theory
of pre-existence. Virgil, in the Sixth Book of his ^-Eneid,
teaches very distinctly the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls. "These souls," says Anchises, "destined for other
bodies, drink, in the waters of Lethe, a long oblivion of things
past." Robert Southey, in one of his published letters, re-
marks, "I have a strong and lively faith in a state of continued
consciousness from this stage of existence; and that we shall
recover the consciousness of other stages through which we
previously may have passed, seems to me not improbable."
And again he writes, "The system of progressive existences

POETS ON PRK-EXISTENCE.

373

8eems, of all others, the most benevolent; and all that we do
understand is so wise and so good, and all we do, or do not, so.
perfectly and overwhelmingly wonderful, that the most benevo-
lent system is the most probable."

In his novel of " Lucretia," Lord Lytton observes : " What
we call eternity may be but an endless series of those transitions
which men call deaths; abandonments of home after home, ever
to fairer scenes and loftier heights. Age after age, the spirit,
that glorious nomad, may shift its tent, fated not to rest in the
dull Elysium of the heathen, but carrying with it evermore its
elements, — activity and desire. Why should the soul ever re-
pose ? . . . Labor is the purgatory of the erring ; and it is none
the less the heaven of the good."

Walter Scott, in his diary, under the date of Feb. 17, 1828,
remarks, " I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down,
that yesterday, at dinner-time, I was strongly haunted by what
I would call the sense of pre-existence, in a confirmed idea that
nothing which passed was said for the first time."

Tennyson repeatedly refers to this mood ; "and in ** The Pre-
lude," by Wordsworth, we find the following passage i —

" Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells 0/ Being pasi^
Nor what it augurs of the life to come."

In his "Intimations of Immortality, from Recollections of
Early Childhood," Wordsworth is still more direct in his refer-
ence to that key to many mysteries, the doctrine of pre-
existence : —

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting :

The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we cooM

From God who is our bomt "

CHAPTER XIII.

PSYCHOMETRY.

" 'Tis immortality deciphers man,
And opens, all the mysteries of his make.
Without it, half his instincts are a riddle ;
Without it, all his virtues are a dream." — Young,

EVERY step taken in advance bjr science is in harmony with
the great facts which Spiritualism reveals. We think that
our popular friend, Agassiz, notwithstanding his exhibition of
vexation when he found he could not manipulate the spiritual
phenomena as easily as he could some rare specimens of cod
and haddock, was nearly right when he said, " We trust that
the time is not distant when it will be universally understood
that the battle of the evidences will have tg be fought on the
field of physical science, and not on that of the metaphysical."

The further science carries its analysis, the more does the
material world lose that character of rigidity which our external
senses attach to it; and the more does it seem plastic under
spiritual laws. Modern chemistry has shown us that all solid
bodies may exist as aeriform ; that even iron may be converted
into an invisible gas ; and the diamond which to our senses is
inert, ponderable matter, may be volatilized in the fire of the
burning mirror so as to develop neither smoke nor cinders.
On the other hand, fire, essentially volatile, can be condensed
in the calcination of metals, so as to become ponderable-

From these facts, De Montlosier deduces the intercstiLig con-
clusion, that all the bodies of the universe might be volatilized
and made to disappear in those spaces which our ignorance calls
tht void; and that, in its turn, what we call tht void mi^^ht be

CAUSE OF CONFUSION OF IDEAS. 375

condensed, so that the number of the celestial bodies might
be multiplied a hundred-fold; and, through all this, the uni-
verse would not have changed in its nature and essence, though
it would be changed in its phenomenal aspect.

One of the most eminent physiologists of the day, Schroeder
van der Kolk, remarks : " In my opinion, this untoward distinc-
tion between the material and the immaterial has singularly
contributed to confuse our ideas. Should we not proceed more
surely in distinguishing in nature that which it is possible for us
to perceive by the senses, and that which escapes their scrutiny f
Who gives us the right to admit that the limits of nature do not
go beyond those of our organs ? "

Everywhere, under the appearance of concretion and hard-
ness, livmg elemental forces are latent, and the slightest varia-
tion in the equilibrium and correlation of these might alter the
face of the universe, and the most solid substances might vanish
like a dream.

In the remote distances between the planets, there is no inac-
tive void. "The space," says Oersted, "is filled by ether and
penetrated by the attractive forces by which the whole universe is
held together. The ether itself is an ocean, whose waves form
light, that great co'nnecting link which conveys messages ' from
globe to globe and from system to system. The wonders un-
ravelled by science prove that we are not isolated beings, but
that we are related to the whole universe."

Thus science comes in to confirm that great deduction of
Spiritualism, which assures us bf the solidarity of all life and
intelligence in whatever world or system they may be devel-
oped, — that we none of us are aliens in God's universe, but cos-
mopolitans, entitled to the freedom of the whole of it; ay, born
to make all the past and all the future our heritage; our ear-
nestness and our efforts being always the measure of our acquisi-
tions in goodness and in knowledge. And for this infinite work
we have an eternity before us.

Besides the assurances of immortality which Spiritualism
gives* in revealing to us the phenomena of spiritual action and

376

PLANCHETTK.

intelligence, it ofTers an added and more important confirmation
in the revelation it makes of powers in the human soul, whidi
proclaim that it is not merely the creature of space and time,
but that in eternity and infinity is to be found its native atmos-
phere ; and that such are its capacities of clairvoyance, that not
only the remotest planet, but the past eternities, may be hereafter
scanned by its unconditioned vision. The argument for immor-
tality, drawn from these capacities, has already been presented,
and it seems to us unanswerable.

Another stupendous fact, which the phenomena we have been
dealing with disclose, is this, — and it is one which, more than
all other considerations, except the consciousness that God sees
us, ought to keep us from defiling the soul by any act which in
our better moments we may deplore, — Memory is imperishable \
and all thought and all action leave their eternal record in the
organic structure of our very souls. Nothing happens, not
the most fleeting and seemingly trivial occurrence of our lives,
that may not be, ages and aeons hence, reproduced to our own
consciousness, as well as to that of others, independently of our
own will or co-operation.

" There is a power," says Voltaire, " that acts within us with-
out consulting us."

Much goes on in the soul, of which consciousness takes no
note at the time; but all mental processes, conscious or un-
conscious, leave their record, and that record is ineffaceable.
Modern physiologists tell us of " latent thought," of «* uncon-
scious cerebration," of the " automatic action of the mind," &c. ;
and Dr. Maudsley says, that ^'consciousness is not co-extensive
with mind;" that "mental power is being organized before
tlie supervention of consciousness ; " and that " the preconscious
action of the mind, and the unconscious, are facts of -which self-
consciousness can give us no account." — "The brain not only
receives impressions unconsciously, registers impressions with-
out the co-operation of consciousness, elaborates materials
unconsciously, calls latent residua again into activity without
consciousness, but it responds also as. an organ of organic life

MARVELS OF MEMORY.

377

to the internal stimuli which it receives unconsciously from
other organs of the body."

All this is true, but not the whole truth. It is but a partial
view of the facts. Consciousness may not take note at the
moment of all this unconscious or automatic action, but it is
inscribed where consciousness can read it in some supreme
moment, God's moment, perchance, when long latent memories
start up with a vividness that commands the concentration of
all our faculties in one eflfort of attention. We have heard how,
when persons are drowning, the incidents of a lifetime pass in
a few seconds before the mental ken. We ourselves experi-
enced the sensation once, when we anticipated- instant death
from an accident in a carriage.

In his " Biographia Literaria," Coleridge mentions a case,
also authenticated by Abercrombie, of a young and ignorant
woman who, during a fever, talked incessantly in Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew; and who, as it was afterwards discovered, had
lived with a learned man, who was a great Hebraist.

"This authenticated case," says Coleridge, "furnishes both
proof and instance, that reliques of sensation may exist for an
indefinite time, in a latent state, in the very same order in which
they were originally impressed; and as we cannot rationally
suppose the feverish state of the brain to act in any other way
than as a stimulus, this fact (and it would not be difficult to
adduce several of the same kind) contributes to make it even
probable that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable ; and
that, if the intelligent faculty should be rendered more compre-
hensive, it would require only a different and apportioned organi-
zation, the body celestial instead of the body terrestrial, to bring
before every human soul the collective experience of its whole
past existence. And Ihis, perchance, is the dread booh of judg"
ment, in the mysterious hieroglyphics of which every idle word is
recorded-

" Yes, in the very nature of a living spirit, it may be more pos-
sible that heaven and earth should pass away, than that a single
act* a single thought, should be loosened or lost from that living

378

PI.ANCHETTE.

chain of causes, with all the links of which, conscious or uncon-
scious, the free will, our only absolute self, is co-extensive and
CO- present."

" All mental activities, all acts of knowledge," sajrs Sir Wil'
Ham Hamilton, "which have been once excited, persist; ive
never wholly lose them, but they become obscure. This obscura-
tion can be conceived in every infinite degree, between incipient
latescence and irrecoverable latency. The obscure cognition
may exist simply out of consciousness, so that it can be recalled
by a common act of reminiscence. Again, it may be impossible
to recover it by an act of voluntary recollection ; but some asso-
ciation may revivify it enough to make it flash after a long ob-
livion into consciousness. Further, it may be obscured so far
that it can only be resuscitated by some morbid affection of the
system; or, finally, it may be absolutely lost for us in this life,
and destined only for our reminiscence in the life to come.**

The facts of clairvoyance go to prove that the " absolute loss,"
of which Sir William speaks, does not take place even in this
life. Sir William was somewhat in advance of our Cambridge
professors. He was well persuaded of the essential facts of clair-
voyance. "However astonishing," he says, "«V ts now proved
beyond all rational doubt that, in certain abnormal states of the
nervous organism, perceptions are possible through other than
the ordinary channels of the sense."

In his essay on the " Philosophical Teaching of Magnetism,"
M. Dupotet says, " Let thy actions be virtuous ; for know that
thy soul will remember them all thy after life on earth, and the
remembrance of- them will be ineflfaceable. Not on sand are
human actions engraven, but in the conscience. Whatsoever
thou shall have thought, shall be known by all who -wish to know
it. For thee no more dissimulation is possible ; no longer anj
mask. As thou wilt be able to read in others, so they in thee;
and thy most trifling actions will appear like a cloud under a
serene sky." v

The phenomena of clairvoyance show that there is not the
slightest exaggeration in all this. The remembrance of our

SENSITIVES.

379

slightest acts and thoughts may be suspended ; but it is eternally
reproducible.

We have seen that, all unconsciously, science, at every step of
its progress, is revealing analogies with spiritual facts. A lec-
ture was recently delivered at the Royal Institution by Professor
Tyndall, in which he demonstrated, that a ray of light was al-
lowed to traverse a strip of glass every time he caused it to set
up a musical sound; the glass being held in a vice, and the
light from an electric lamp polarized upon it. The same learned
professor delivered a lecture on "The Rhythm of Flames," or
" On Sounding and Sensible Flames," when he exhibited a flame
some twenty inches in height, which fell down to eight on the
slightest tap on an anvil. It responded to the tinkle of a bunch
of keys or a few pence shaken together, the creaking of boots,
the rustling of a silk dress or a piece of paper; while certain in-
tonations of the voice threw it into violent commotion.

Grove says, in his "Correlation and Continuity," p. i6i,

Myriads of organized beings may exist imperceptible to our
vision, even if we were amongst them ; and we might be equally
imperceptible to them."

The universe is a vast whispering gallery, a boundless system
of correlated influences ; and the soul of man has the eternal free-
dom of the infinite " mansions."

The faculty which some sensitives have, like Mr. J. V. Mans-
field, of learning the contents of a letter, or the mood of the
writer, by simply feeling of the paper, has been so repeatedly
tested as to be placed beyond a dpubt. Others, as we have seen
in the case of Home, by simply being brought in contact with a
person, or by touching a lock of his hair, will have revealed to
them incidents in his past life to an extent wholly inexplicable.

Heinrich Zschokke, the celebrated German writer, was one of
these. He was instinctively a Spiritualist from his youth up,
was well acquainted with the phenomena of rhabdomancy
(divination by a rod or wand), which, he says, presented him
with a new phase of nature, and which was, moreover, of con-
siderable use to him in his mining operations. From personal

38o

PLANCHETTB.

experience, he believed in spiritual impressions and presenti-
ments, especially as conveyed in dreams. But his most remark-
able faculty was what he describes as a sing'ular kind of pro-
phetic gift he called his inward sight, but whiph was always an
enigma to him. The following is his detailed account of it: —

** It is well known that the judgment we not seldom form at
the first glance of persons hitherto unknown, is more correct
than that which is the result of longer acquaintance. The first
impression, that through some instinct of the soul attracts or re-
pels us with strangers, is afterwards weakened or destroyed bj
custom, or by different appearances. We speak in such cases of
sympathies or antipathies, and perceive these effects frequentlj
among children, to whom experience in human character is
wholly wanting. Others are incredulous on this point, and have
recourse rather to the art of physiognomy. Now, for my own
case: It has happened to me sometimes on my first meeting
with strangers, as I listened silently to their discourse, that their
former life, with many trifling circumstances therewith con*
nected, or frequently some particular scene in that life, has
passed quite involuntarily, and, as it were, dream-like, yet per-
fectly distinct before me. During this time, I usually feel so en-
tirely absorbed in the contemplation of the stranger life, that at
last I no longer see clearly the face of the unknown, wherein I un-
designedly read, nor distinctly hear the voices of the speakers,
which before served in some measure as a commentary to the
text of their features.

"For a long time, I held such visions as delusions of the fancy,
and the more so, as they showed me even the dress and motions
of the actors, rooms, furniture, and other accessories. By wa/
of jest, I once in a familiar family circle at Kirchberg related the
secret history of a seamstress who had just left the room and the
house. I had never seen her before in my life : people were as-
tonished and laughed, but were not to be persuaded that I did
not previously know the relations of which I spoke ; for what I
had uttered was the literal truth. I, on my part, was no less as-
tonished that my dream-pictures were confirmed by the reality. I

S:^P£RIBNCBS OP ZSCHOKKB. 38 1

became more attentive to the subject, and, when propriety ad-
mitted it, I would relate to those whose life thus passed before
me the subject of my vision, that I might thereby obtain confir-
mation or refutation of it. It was invariably ratified, not without
'consternation on their part. * What demon inspires you? Must
I again believe in possession?' exclaimed the sptrttuel Johann
von Riga, when, in the first hour of our acquaintance, I related his
past life to him, with the avowed object of learning whether or
no I deceived myself. We speculated long on the enigma, but
even his penetration could not solve it. I myself had less con-
fidence than any one in this mental jugglery. So often as I re-
vealed my visionary gifts to any new person, I regularly expected
to he'ar the answer, * It was not so.* I felt a secret shudder when
my auditors replied that it was true, or when their astonishment
betrayed my accuracy before they spoke. Instead of many, I
will mention one example, which pre-eminently astounded me.

" One fair day in the city of Waldshut, I entered an inn (the
Vine), in company with two young student-foresters; we were
tired with rambling through the woods. We supped with a
numerous society at the iadle dVtd^e, where the guests were
making very merry with the peculiarities and eccentricities of
the Swiss, with Mesmer's magnetism, Lavater's physiognomy,
&c. One of my companions, whose national pride was wounded
by their mockery, begged me to make some reply, particularly
to a handsome young man who sat opposite us, and who had al-
lowed himself extraordinary license. This man*s former life was
at that moment presented to my mind. I turned to him and
asked whether he would answer me candidly if I related to him
some of the most secret passages of his life, I knowing as little
of him personally as he did of me? That would be going a little
further, I thought, than Lavater did with his physiognomy. He
promised, if I were correct in my information, to admit it frankly.
I then related what my vision had shown me, and the whole com-
pany were made acquainted with the private history of the young
merchant; his school years, his youthful errors, and, lastly, with
A fault committed in reference to the strong box of his principal.

j82

PLANCHSTTB.

I described to him the uninhabited room with whitened walls,
where, to the right of the brown door, on a table, stood a black
money-box, &c. A dead silence prevailed during the whole
narration, which I alone occasionally interrupted hy inquiring
whether I spoke the truth. The startled young man confirmed'
every particular, and even, what I had scarcely expected, the last
mentioned. Touched by his candor, I shook hands with him
over the table, and said no mote. He asked my name, which I
gave him, and we remained together talking till past midnight.
He is probably still living !

" I can well explain to myself how a person of lively imagina-
tion may form, as in a romance, a correct picture of the actions
and passions of another person, of a certain character, under cer-
tain circumstances. But whence came those trifling accessories
which nowise concerned me, and in relation to people for the
most part indifferent to me, with whom I neither had, nor desired
to have, any connection? Or, was the whole matter a constantly
recurring accident? Or, had my auditor, perhaps, when I re-
lated the particulars of his former life, very different views to give
of the whole, although in his first surprise, and misled by some
resemblances, he had mistaken them for the same? And yet, im-
pelled by this very doubt, I had several times given myself
trouble to speak of the most insignificant things which my wak-
ing dream had revealed to me. I shall not say another word on
this singular gift of vision, of which I cannot say it was ever of*
the slightest service ; it manif(?sted itself rarely, quite independ-
ently of my will, and several times in reference to persons whom
I cared little to look through. Neither am I the only person in
possession of this power. On an excursion I once made with
two of my sons, I met wfth an old Tyrolese, who carried oranges
and lemons about the country, in a house of public entertain-
ment, in Lower Hanenstein, one of the passes of the Jura. He
fixed his eyes on me for some time, then mingled in the conver-
sation, and said that he knew me, although he knew me not, and
went to relate what I had done and striven to do in former time,
to the consternation of the country people present, and the great

EXPERIENCES OF DESCHAMPS. '

admiration of my children, who were diverted to find another
person gifted like their father. How the old lemon merchant
came by his knowledge, he could not explain, neither to me nor
to himself ; he seemed, nevertheless, to value himself somewhat
upon his mysterious wisdom."

Emile Deschamps communicates to "Le Monde Musical," of
Brussels (1868), the following account of his own experience in
psychometrj : ** If a man believed only what he could compre-
hend, he would believe neither in God, in himself, in the stars
which roll above his head, nor in the herbage which is crushed
beneath his feet. . . .

" In the month of February, 1846, I travelled in France. I ar-
rived in a rich and great city ; and I toQk a walk in front of the
beautiful shops which abound in it. The rain began to fall ; I
entered an elegant gallery. All at once I stood motionless;
I could not withdraw my eyes from the figure of a lovely young
woman, who was all alone behind an array of articles of orna-
ment for sale. This young woman was very handsome ; but it
was not at all her beauty which enchained me. I know not
what mysterious interest, what inexplicable bond, held and mas-
tered my whole being. It was a sympathy subtle and profound,
free from any sensual alloy, but of irresistible force, as the un-
known is in all things. I was pushed forward into the shop by
a supernatural power. I purchased several little things, and, as I
paid for them, said, * Thank you. Mademoiselle Sara.' The
young girl looked at me with an air of surprise. * It astonishes
you,' I continued, * that a stranger knows your name, and one of
your baptismal names ; but, if you will think for a moment of all
your names, I will repeat them all to you. Do you think of
them?' *Yes, monsieur,* she replied, half-smiling and half-
trembling. *Very well,* I added, looking fixedly in her face,

*You are called Sara Adele Benjamine N .* *It is true,*

she replied ; and after some minutes of surprise she began all at
once to laugh ; and I saw that she thought that I had obtained
this information in the neighborhood, in order to amuse myself
with it. But I knew very well that I had not till this moment

384

PLANCHETTE*

known a word of it, and I was terrified at my own instantaneoui
divination.

"The next and the next day I hastened to the handsome
shop ; my divination was renewed at every instant. I begged of
Sara to think of something, without letting me know what it
was ; and, immediately, I read on her countenance her thought
not yet expressed. I requested her to write with a pencil some
words, which she should keep carefully concealed from me ; and,
after having looked at her for a minute, I, on my part, wrote
down the same words in the same order. I had her thoughts as
in an open book ; but she could not in the slightest degree read
mine, such was my superiority; but at the same time she im-
posed on me her ideas and her emotions. Let her think seriously
on any subject, or let her repeat in h^r own mind the words of
any writing, and instantly I was aware of the whole. The
mystery lay betwixt her brain and mine, not betwixt my
facu'lties of intuition and things material. Whatever it might
be, there existed a rapport between us as intimate as it was
pure.

"One night I heard in my ear a loud voice crying to me,

* Sara is very ill, very ill I ' I hastened to her : a medical man
was watching over her and expecting a crisis. That evening
Sara had entered her lodgings in a burning fever; she continued
in delirium all night. The doctor took me aside, and told me
that he feared the worst result. From that apartment I saw
the countenance of Sara clearly, and, my intuition rising above
my distress, I said in a low voice, ' Doctor, do you know with
what images her fevered sleep is occupied? She believes that
she is at this moment at the grand opera at Paris, where she
indeed has never been, and a danseuse gathers, amongst other
buds, some hemlock, and, throwing it to her, cries, " T/kat is for
you^ '

"The physician thought I was delirious too; but some minutes
afterwards the patient awoke heavily, and her first words were,

* Oh ! how beautiful is the opera ! but why did that handsome
girl throw to me that hemlock ? * The doctor was stupefied with

GOETHE AND LAVATER.

385

astonishment. A medicine containing hemlock was admin-
istered, and in some days Sara was well."

According to Goethe, this same faculty of psychometry or in-
ward sight was possessed by Lavater, the celebrated physiogno-
mist (1741-1801). Goethe tells us that Lavater's insight into
the characters of individuals " surpassed all conception and he
speaks of it as one of those gifts which " seem to have something
of magic in it." However this may be, we have his authority
for asserting that Lavater believed in special providences, espe-
cially in answer to prayer, and that he had "a perfect con-
viction that miracles can be wrought to-day as well as hereto-
fore." He tells us, too, that " his [Lavater's] system of
physiognomy rests on the conviction that the sensible corre-
sponds throughout with the spiritual, and is not only an evidence
of it, but, indeed, its represenfSsitive ; " and, like Swedenborg
and Spiritualists in general, he held that the future life was
a continuation of the present, though under different condi-
, tions.

" Whatever may be conjectured or inferred," says Lavater, ** in
regard to the state of the soul after death, may be stated in the
following thesis or axiom : * Man shall reap as he has sown.'
It is impossible to discover a more lucid or simple principle, or
one capable of a wider application.

"There exists a general, natural law which governs every
world, and every department of the physical, moral, intelligent,
visible, and invisible worlds. It is this : * Whatever is suscepti-
ble of affinity, attracts ; the same species are mutually drawn
to each other, unless thwarted by obstacles fortuitously inter-
posed.'

" Every soul freed from mafter not only knows itself; not only
do the errors, distractions, and blindness which opposed it in the
contemplation of itself, and in the knowledge of its powers,
weakness, and shortcomings, cease, but it feels itself attracted
toward every thing which has affinity for it, by an interior,
irresistible force; while it feels repulsion for whatever is alien
to it.

386

PU^CHBTTK.

**It8 moral or religious character gives it a determinate direc-
tion. Whoso is good goes toward the good. Its needs, its at-
tractibns for the good, give it this direction. The impure soul is
repelled among the impure. Just as a heavy weight, tossed into
open space, would fall swiftly into the abyss, so impure, im-
moral, and irreligious souls will inevitably go to join their
ake."

Lavater, in this, merely sums up what is highest and most
uniform in the teachings of Spiritualism.

Among American poets of promise was Force3rthe Willson.
Bom in Indiana in 1837, he died in 1867. He, too, was a psycho-
metrist. He would take a letter, and, pressing it to his forehoad,
announce accurately the character and personal appearance of
the writer. He, too, like Oberlin, professed to have interviews
with his departed wife. There is a remarkable poem from his
pen, entitled " The Voice," which seems to have reference to the
^Kt We quote the following passages : —

" My soul to ecstasy was stirred ;
It was a Voice that I had heard
A thousand blissful times before.
But deemed that I should hear no more
'Till I should have a spirit's ear
And breathe another atmosphere. . . .

" * Where art thou, blessed spirit, where,
Whose voice is dew upon the air? *
I looked around me and above,
And cried aloud, ' Where art thou. Love ?
Oh let me see thy living eye
And clasp thy living hand, or die ! *
Again upon the atmosp^re
The self-same words feU, * / am here I *

" • Here? Thou art here. Love? ' — */ am ketw I
The echo died upon my ear I
I looked around me everywhere.
But ah ! there was no mortal there I
The moonlight was upon the mart,
And awe and wonder in my heart

THE SOUL OF THINGS.

I saw no form ! — I only felt
Heaven's peace upon me as I knelt,
And knew a Soul Beatified
Was at that moment at my side."

Between Willson and a neighbor a coolness had arisen. But
as Willson was about to leave town, the neighbor met him at
the cars, and, holding out his hand, said, " We must not part
with a cloud between us." Willson grasped the proffered hand
with emotion, and replied, " The good man within me told me to
say to you just what you have said to me; but the devil wouli
have conquered, I fear, if you had not spoken. We shall never
meet again / for within six months I shall have joined my wife
in the land of the hereafter."

The presentiment was accurate. Within four months he
died.

William Denton, the accomplished professor of geology, says,
"There are forces coming out from all forms of matter: we can-
not see them with the material eye, hear them with the material
ear, know them by the material senses \ but the soul has facul-
ties by which to grasp them."

Reichenbach discovered that from every magnet, in proportion
to its length, flowed forth luminous rays, and that some indi-
viduals are so susceptible as to be able to see these, while men
generally have not the slightest idea of their existence. Some
of the persons he experimented upon, were enabled to perceive
the presence of a magnet, even when twenty to fifty feet distant.
The luminous aura emitted from shells, minerals, magnets, the
human body, and each of its organs, and, indeed, from all
objects around us, serves, in some subtle way, to retain and
convey to the seer an impression of their past history and sur-
roundings. Mr. Denton's experiments have demonstrated that
there are certain sensitives who can receive influences from the
fossil remains of the far-off ages.

In thait able contribution to the literature of Spiritualism,
"The Soul of Things," he presents facts showing that the soul
of man has power to read, even in the inorganic substances of

388 PLANCHETTB.

nature, their eternal record. Thus, in a spiritual sense, what-
ever has been, is now. No mountain ever stood that stands not
now ; no human being ever shed an influence, who sheds it not
now. Only the spiritual is the abiding.

"The air," says Professor Babbage, "is one vast library, on
whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said, or
woman whispered."

The spirit, when it passes on, takes with it every thing neces-
sary for the continuance of its individuality. Deprive a man at
once of his good or his bad tendencies, and you rob him of his
identity: he becomes scrtnebody else at once. God is very
patient, since he has an eternity in which to deal with us. He
can put up with very slow gradations of progress ; even with
retrogressions. The loss will be our own ; and the eflfort must
be our own if we would make up for the loss.

Psychometry tells us, that the soul is what Aristotle calls an
entelechy, or actuality, unlimited by this enclosure of flesh.
"We ought not," says Dr. Bertrand, "to consider our body as
containing our soul in the manner in which a thing material
contains another; but only as limiting the extent of the matter
in which it is given it to act and feel."

What an incentive to a scrupulous morality* would the facts
Of psychometry be, if rightly pondered ! They show that every
act and thought of our existence are for ever reproducible for
ourselves and all spiritual intelligences to scan at pleasure; that
the warp and woof of our spiritual substance include all that we
have desired, done, and thought; that God's judgments are

* " If nothing could be Evil, nothing would be Good,

But all things whatsoever would be indiflFerent and unmoral.

The possibility of Vice is the condition of Virtue.

So likewise is Evil the revelation of Good,

And Human weakness of Divine strength.

If we had no lower impulses, no meaner passions.

No drawings toward the worse, no susceptibility of temptation.

Never should we distinguish God's voice in Conscience,

Nor know that God is moral, nor frame moral judgments."

Theism^ by Francis IV. Newmca

THE soul's day OF JUDGMENT.

recorded against us in the very structure of our being, as fast
as our sins are committed.

There is no waiting for rewards and punishments. Poor con-
ceptions of a heavenly reward must he hav« who regards it as
something outside of the state of his own soul. Foretastes of
heaven may be had even here by every righteous, loving, and
aspiring spirit. All^he good we do, all the pure happiness
we enjoy, are happiness and good for ever. All our acquisi-
tions in knowledge, in art, in virtue, are made for ever, and
shall be the vantage-ground of ever new attainments.

On the other hand, the hell of the evil-doer yawns for him
even now; and, in one sense, it is eternal; for, as we have seen,
though the sinner may forsake his sin (and in every soul there
is a redeeming principle antagonistic to everlasting wrong),
the sin will not forsake him. Its record, which is itself, is for
ever plain to the psychometrist of the spirit-world, and the sin-
ner's own memory will not let it go.

The day of judgment, when is it, if not now? Shall He to
whom the universe is a very small thing, need the forms of our
poor human assizes for his purposes in the creation of man?
The pressure of his laws is upon us every moment, spiritually
as well as physically. We can no more violate his law of right,
without a simultaneous penalty, than we can thrust our fihger
in the fire without injury. The spiritual, like the physical,
offence, carries its punishment. We have but imperfect concep-
tions of the powers of our own souls. Clairvoyance, and the
facts of Spiritualism, give us, here and there, a glimpse of
them.

There will be no more ffwful tribunal than that of the awakened
conscience ; no more dreadful sentence than that which the
roused and clear-seeing mind of man shall some day, in some
stage of being, near or remote, pronounce, according to the
degree of his development and his intelligence, against himself.

God's pardon I Can God arbitrarily or vicariously pardon?
Yes : in all the ways by which we may truly seek it, God's par-
don may be had, arbitrarily or freely, directly or vicariously ;

390

PLANCHETTE.

through our own merits, or through another's, or through no
merits at all ; through reverence for a Saviour or saint of old
time, or through heart-crushing affection for a poor little djring
infant of to-day. -Though our sins are as scarlet, his pardon
goes with the asking.

But the soul's own pardon, — what of that? God, in his
infinite mercy, may let the waters of LetHle serve us for a time;
but, by the inexorable laws of our spiritual constitution, the
soul's day of judgment must come, sooner or later, and the later
the more terrible. The fearfulest judgment-seat will be that
which in some moment of illumination, of expansion of . our
natural powers, we shall find established within the domain
of our own intellectual being. Judge, jury, witnesses, will be
there, —

" There is no shuffling ; there the action fies
In his true nature ; and we ouiselTes compelled.
Even to the teeth and fwdiead of our fiuilts,
To give in evidence."

In that day of the soul, we can no more escape the inefface-
able brand which conscience will put upon us, than we can run
from our own shadow in the sunlight.

Such are the teachings of psychometry.

CHAPTER XIV.

CX>GNAT£ FACTS AND PHENOMENA.

All life is Thy life, O Infinite One, and only the religious eye penetrates to th*.
teahn of True Beauty." — y. G. FichU.

NO one who has carefully examined the facts of modern
Spiritualism, can fail of being struck by the analogy they
bear to many of the miraculous incidents recorded in the Bible.
Nothing can be more certain than that the Bible distinctly
recognizes a class of phenomena, rejected by modern skepticism
as contrary to the order of nature, but the possibility of which
is clearly proved in the attestations of thousands of intelligent
contemporaries to similar occurrences.

Instances of the exercise of the prophetic faculty, by som-
nambulists and others, have been not unfrequent during the
present century. The prophet Hosea represents God as sayings
" I have spoken by the prophets, I have multiplied visions."

What clearer recognition of some of the higher experiences
of somnambulism and trance can we have than the following :
"God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth not; in a
dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon
men, in slumberings upon the bed, and sealeth their instruction,
that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride
from man."

Among the earliest spiritual manifestations of the Old Testa-
ment are the spirit-voices. The Lord spake face to face with
Adam and Eve (Gen. ii. i6, and again, Gen. iii. 9-22) ; again, he
spake with Cain (Gen. iv. 6), and also spake and walked with
Enoch.

What a life of spiritual experiences was that of Abraham I -
In Gren. xviii. is related the memorable visit of the three angels
to him, and afterwards their visit to Lot, — " Be not forgetful to

393

PLANCHETTE.

entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares." Angels of the Lord met Jacob on his return from
Padanaram (Gen. xxxii. i.) ; also at Peniel an angel met and
wrestled with Jacob : refusing to give his name, he wrestled all
the night, until he said, "Let me go, for the day breaketh."
Moses was evidently in constant communication with the spirit-
world.

An angel appeared to Hagar (Gen. xvi.); and two to Lot
(Gen. xix.). One called to Hagar (Gen. xxxi.) ; and to Abra-
ham (Gen. xxii.) ; one spake to Jacob in a dream (Gen. xxxi.) ;
one appeared to Moses (Exod. iii.) ; one went before the camp
of Israel (Exod. xiv.) ; one spake to all the children of Israel
(Judgeis ii.) ; one spake to Gideon (Judges vi.) ; and to the wife
of Manoah (Judges xiii.) ; one appeared to Elijah (i Kings xix.) ;
one stood by the threshing-floor of Oman (i Chron. xxi.) ; one
talked with Zachariah (Zach. i.) ; one appeared to the two
Marys at the sepulchre (Matt, xxviii.); one foretold the birth
of John the Baptist (Luke i.) ; one appeared to the Virgin Mary
(Jbid.') ; to the shepherds (Luke ii.) ; one opened the door of
Peter's prison (Acts v.) ; two were seen by Jesus, Peter, James,
and John (Luke ix.). It will not do for scriptural objectors to say
these angels were a distinct order of beings from man ; for those
seen by the apostles were Moses and Elias, and that seen by
John (Rev. xxii.), though called by him an angel, avowed him-
self to be his fellow-servant, and "one of his brethren, the
prophets."

The instances of miraculous cures are numerous. Read Lev.
XV. and xvi.. Num. v., i Kings xiii., i Kings xvii., 2 Kings ii. 4;
iv. 5 ; xix. 20; Josh, x., &c. Hundreds of such cases could be cited
from the Old Testament, hundreds from the New Testament
Christ said this power would continue, and that these signs
should alxOays follow those that believe: "In my name shall
they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they
shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing,
it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover" (Mark xvi. 17, 18).

SPIRITUALISM IN THE BIBLE.

393

The reported cures of Dr. Newton, the Zouave Jacob, and
many others at the present day, are certainly not unworthy of
investigation, if we are to believe passages like the above.

Modern skepticism accounts those persons fatuous who say,
"We have seen writing that could never have been done by
mortal hand;" or who say, "Our hands were moved to write
involuntarily." And yet spirit-writing appeared on Belshazzar's
palace-wall; and Ezekiel (ii. 9) says, "And when I looked, be-
hold a hand was sent unto me; and lo, a roll of a book was
therein, and he spread it before me, and it was written within
and without."

There we have two distinct instances of spiritual manifesta-
tion, very similar to those coming under our own notice in the
present day. Spirit-hands and spirit-writing were seen, without
the seers being either mad, dreaming, or even entranced.

"All this," said David, "the Lord made me understand in
writing', by his hand upon me, even all the marks of this pat-
tern " (i Chron. xxvii. 19). See, also, 2 Chron. xxi. 12, where
it is stated that "There came a writing to Jehoram from Elijah
the prophet; " and this must have been some years after Elijah's
death; though some of the commentators quietly assume, in a
marginal note, that the said writing was written before the
prophet's death!

We have accounts of visions and trances, such as those of
Balaam, the son of Beor, who heard the words of God, saw the
vision of the Almighty; falling into a trance, having his eyes
open, — a state accurately described, and which is familiar to
those acquainted with certain forms of somnambulism; of
Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem; of Ezekiel, the priest, by the river Chebar, when
the heavens were opened, and he saw visions of God ; of Daniel,
in the palace of Shushan, and bythe great river Hiddekel ; of
Peter, at Joppa, who, when he had gone upon the house-top
to pray, fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened; of Paul,
who was in a trance while praying in the temple at Jerusalem ;
of John, the divine, in the isle that is called Patmos, and who

394

PUkNCHBTTB*

WM commanded by a voice from the heavens, What thou seest
write in a book ; " and who, at the conclusion of his Apocalypse,
tells us, And I John saw and heard these things."

That spirits can move material objects, or manifest themselves
materially to the touch of mortals, is clearly implied in such
narratives as those of the angel who delivered Peter out of
prison ; of the angel who rolled away the stone from the door
of the sepulchre; of the apostle Philip whom the Spirit of the
Lord caught away " and bore from Gaza to Azotus ; and of Eze-
kiel's experiences, almost literally like those of some of our con-
temporaries, as mentioned in this volume : So the Spirit lifted
me up, and took me away. . . . And he put forth /Jke form of «f
kand^ and took me hy a lock of mine head^ and the Spirit lifiU
me up between the earth and the heaven."

Until within the last few years, who was more fit for a lunatic
asylum than the man who would believe that a spirit could lift t
table, '*thus violating the law of gravitation"? Yet iuks of
iron were made to swim, and men were carried through the air,
so often, indeed, that Obadiah was afraid lest the Spirit should
carry away Elijah, afler he had announced his presence to the
king (i Kings xviii.)*

Of spiritual apparitions, it may be sufficient to refer to that
of Samuel the prophet, who spoke to Saul, and foretold the
impending fate of the king and of his sons.

Seership, in the earlier periods of Hebrew history, was a dis-
tinctive and honorable office. Thus we have Iddo, the seer;
Gad, the king's seer; Jeduthun, the king's seer; and many more,
whose sayings were written down and placed in the Jewish
archives. We read of the time of Samuel, " He that is now
called a prophet, was before-time called a seer ; " and that, " The
word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no
open vision ; " or, as De Witte translates it, " The word of the
Liord was rare, in those days visions were not frequent.

Besides these instances, so circumstantially related, and others
of a like kind with which the Scriptures abound, exemplifying
various modes of spirit influx and operation, there is the long

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 395

series of miracles, prophecies, and revelations, running through
and indissolubly blended with the sacred history ; and the varied
" spiritual gifts " concerning which St. Paul, writing to the
Church of Corinth, says, ** I would not have you ignorant."

Nor does the Church, in succeeding times, appear to have been
ignorant.

Augustine asserts that miracles were so frequent and extraor*
dinary in his time (the fourth century), that accounts of them
were read in the churches. Some are said to have been done
before many witnesses, and some in his own presence.

Evodius, a bishop in Africa, and a friend of Augustine, cor-
responded with the latter concerning spirit-manifestations. Of
the reality of these, Evodius was well persuaded from his own
experience. He says, ** I remember well that Profuturus, Priva-
tus, and Servitius, whom I had known in the monastery here,
appeared to me, and talked to me, after their decease ; and what
they told me, happened. Was it their souls which appeared to
me, or was it some other spirits who assumed their forms f " He
also inquires, ''If the soul on quitting its (mortal) body does
not retain a certain subtile body with which it appears, and by
means of which it is transported from one spot to another?"
Augustine, in reply, acknowledges that there is a great distinc-
tion to be made between true and false visions, and that he could
wish that he had some sure means of distinguishing them.

It is a common notion among Protestants, that all alleged
supernatural occurrences in the Catholic Church are either the
delusions of ignorant enthusiasts, or the inventions of priest-
craft. There can be no greater mistake. Whether the miracles
are genuine or not, the Catholic Church admits them only after
a most thorough investigation. '' I should not be a good Catho-
lic," said Cardinal Wiseman, '' if I did not believe in spiritual
manifestations."

The working of miracles is a condition absolutely necessary
in the canonization of saints ; and it is only after a most careful
scrutiny of facts that the Church allows canonization.

In the scholastic ages," says Fleming, the belief in return

39^

PLANCHETTE.

from the dead, in apparitions and spirits, was universal." Mr.
Morison, in his "Life of St. Bernard," observes, "Miracles,
ghostly apparitions, divine and demoniac interference with
sublunary affairs, were matters which a man of the twelfth
century would less doubt of than of his own existence."

St. Theresa, of whose experiences we have already made
mention, writes in her account of her life, " Sometimes my
whole body was carried with my soul^ so as to be raised from the
ground ; but this was seldom. When I wished to resist these
raptures, there seemed to be somewhat of such mighty force
under my feet, which raised me up, that I knew not what to
compare it to. All my resistance availed little."

A modern Spiritualist believes all this without difficulty.

Ernest Renan, in his "Life of Christ," makes light of the
phenomena of the Bible, as well as of Spiritualism. He calls
for "a miracle at Paris, for instance, before experienced 5a-
vans ; " one which would put an end to all doubt. Elsewhere,
too, he explains more exactly what would suit him as to a mira-
cle ; that it should be wrought under conditions as to time and
place, in a hall, and before a commission of physiologists,
chemists, physicians, and critics; and that, when it had been
done once, it should, on request, be repeated.

Well does William Mountford, in his " Anti-Supernaturalisra
of the Age," reply to expectations like these : "Are earthquakes,
as reports, accounted incredible, as not occurring at a time and a
place known beforehand, and submissive to the ^directions of
men with clocks and spirit-levels, and with magnetic and other
machines all ready for use ? And, indeed, a miracle coming to
order would scarcely be a miracle. For, coming to order pa-
tiently, punctually, and as a scientific certainty, it would, by that
very fact, have parted probably with something essential to its
nature as commonly understood."

The belief in guardian angels was common in the earliest his-
toric times. According to Plato, a peculiar tutelary demon is
allotted to every man, — an unseen, yet ever-present witness of
his thoughts and conduct. Both Greeks and Romans had their

PLANCriETTE IN CHINA.

397

genii. Plutarch says, "One Supreme Providence governs the
world; and genii participate with him in its administration."
That each individual has his guardian angel, has always been a
favorite tenet of the Catholic Church ; and its prayer for children
recognizes the belief.

Instances in which persons have spoken in a language which
was unknown to them in their normal state, are not infre-
quent in modern Spiritualism.

In Edward Irving*s church, in England (1831), the utterances
were sometimes in foreign languages as well as in "the un-
known tongue."

Colquohon, in his "Isis Revelata," remarks, "Many authors
have noticed this phenomenon of speaking a language unknown
to the individual in his ordinary state; and it will very fre-
quently be found coupled with the prophetic faculty, as arising
out of the same or similar conditions."

Not only in Judea, but throughout the Orient, has the belief in
spirit-communion prevailed from the earliest times. Mahomet
was what would be called in our days a medium. He was sub-
ject to trances and ecstasies. He was a thorough Spiritualist.
When he followed the mortal remains of his son Ibrahim to
the grave, he invoked the child's spirit to hold fast to the
foundations of the faith; the unity of God, &c. So Irving says.*

According to Hue, the Catholic missionary, table-rapping and
table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the
Mongols, in ^he wilds of Tartary. The Chinese recognize spirit-
ual intervention as a fact, and it is an element in their religious
systems. At the rites in honor of Confucius, Hue tells us that
the spirit of Confucius is'addressed as present.

Dr. Macgowan, in the "North-China Herald," tells us how
writing is performed by the agency of spirits; from which we
may infer that a form of Planchette is no novelty among the
Chinese. He says, "The table is sprinkled equally with bran,

• From Irving, we learn that Columbus, too,'was a Spiritualist ; believing that a
^irit-voice spoke to him, to comfort him in his troubles, in Hi^taniola.

398

PLANCHBTTB.

flour, dust, or other powder ; and two mediums sit down at oppo-
site sides, with their hands on the table. A hemispherical bas-
ket, eight inches in diameter, is now reversed, and laid down
with its edges resting on the tips of one or two fingers of the
two mediums. This basket is to act as penholder ; and a reed,
or style, is fastened to the rim, or a chopstick thrust through
the interstices, with the point touching the powdered table.

"The ghost, meanwhile, has been duly invoked ; and the spec-
tators stand round, waiting the result. This is not uniform. Som&
times the spirit summoned is unable to write ; sometimes he is
mischievously inclined, and the pen — for it always moves—
will make either a few senseless flourishes on the tables, or
fashion sentences that are without meaning, or with a meaning
that only misleads. This, however, is comparatively rare. In
general, the words traced are arranged in the best form of com-
position, and they communicate intelligence wholly unknown to
the operators. These operators are said to be not only uncon-
scious, but unwilling, participators in- the feat."

T3he same writer tells us that in Ningpo, in 1843, there was
scarcely a house in which this mode of getting messages from
the spirits was not practised. So it would seem that, some five
years before the phenomena at Hydesville, Planchette, or a sub-
stitute for it, was common in China ! ♦

* In the New- York "Round Table" of Dec. 12th, 1868, we find the following re-
marks upon the subject of Planchette : " Mr. Kirby is said to have sold over two hna-
dred thousand planchettes, at a profit of fifty cents, cash, each. It neSd not surprise as
that Mr. Kirby thinks well of planchette. Now what does so knowing a young lady
as Miss Field think of it ? In this neat little volume (* Planchette's Diary *), she teDs
her own experiences, and, as a conclusion of the whole, admits that she has no theoiy.is
perplexed ; and, finally, ' from the sensations undergone while using planchette, I am
inclined to believe myself under the influence of a wonderfully subtle magnetic fluid-'
To find a name to call a thing by, seems to satisfy most minds ; but a name is nothing, —
* electricity,' * magnetism,' * odic force,' * vital current,' and so on and on, and we are
as much in the dark as ever about planchette, table-movings, hysteria, Spiritualisia«
demonism, witchcraft, possession of devils, &c. Are these any thing at all but * de-
rangement ' of the normal forces of human nature, or a strange and unhealthy action?
or are they, in some subtle way, the action of spiritual forces outside of oursehes?
Science has not yet settled the question, and we commend it to the attention of oar
new school of positivists."

DEATH A STEP TO HIGHER LIFE. 399

Seneca compares the birth of man into this world to his birth
from the womb of Nature, into " another beginning, another
state of things that expects us."

" It will be just as natural for you," says one, claiming to be a
spirit, " to become suddenly conscious of the spirit-world, as it
is for the infant to be ushered into the material world without
consciously tkperiencing any unusual degree of excitement from
the occurrence."

"A form which vanishes," says Gustave Aimandj "is the
creation of a new form, a transformation of being. What we
call death is a movement in advance, a progressive evolution, an
aggrandizement of life. Our past furnishes us a double proof
of this assertion ; for it is through a double death, a double de-
struction of anterior forms, that we arrive at our present life.

" Suppose that the ovule which is to one day be a man, had
sensibility and intelligence: would it not take for symptoms,
premonitory of its end, the painful rendings of its ovulary or-
ganization ? Error I Vain fears I The ovule becomes a foetus ;
that is to say, passes from an inferior life to a superior ; fon the
foetus has an organization and a life distinct from those both of
the ovule and of the infant.

" Suppose now that the foetus, also sensitrve and intelligent,
approaching the end of its foetal life, began to experience the
sufferings of child-birth. Would not ij^^ too, believe that the
convulsive claspings of the uterus were the very embrace of
death and the utter annihilation of life ? Error again I Vain
fears I For that which it took for its death-rattle of agony, and
its last adieu to existence, is the first wailing of a new-born
child, its salutation to a new and higher life.

" And so the end of one life is the commencement of another
life less imperfect. It is in this manner, beyond a doubt, that
by an endless series of evolutions or of deaths, we shall realize
more and more the divine destiny which is revealed to us and
promised by our aspirations, our infinite desires.

" Unless man is eternal in his substance, immortal in his per-
sonality, infinite in his destiny, even as he is in his desires, then

400

PLANCHETTE.

there is neither Being of beings, nor Omnipotent Goodness,
nor Infinite Love, nor Eternal Justice : God does not exist."

We know with what suddenness the prevalent fanatical notions
in regard to witchcraft passed away from the civilized world.
Mr. Lecky has described it in some striking sentences. It was
as if people had awakened all at once from a dreadful night-
mare. One day witchcraft seemed a fixed fact, and^he next day
it was spurned and gone. Unquestionably, with what there was
in it fanatical and false, much that was true was repudiated. It
will be the work of Spiritualism to point out and re-confirm
the true. But the time is not far back, when, to deny witchcraft,
and the construction put on it by the authority of the Old Testa-
ment, was regarded as a sort of atheism.

May it not be that our theological systems and creeds, widely
but somewhat passively accepted as they now may be, are des-
tined to a winnowing not unlike that which witchcraft has
undergone? May not Some of our professional religious teachers
wake up some bright morning to find that their hearers have
very generally outgrown a certain style of appeal to their lazy
preferences, their self-indulgent hopes, their nervous fears, or
their sordid calculations? Should such a change come, — and
the signs are threatening, — we mey be sure that Spiritualism,
pure and undefiled, will be the unfailing conservator of all that
is good and true in human beliefs on the subject of the rela-
tions of man to time and to eternity, to the universe and to its
Author.

THE END.

GENERAL INDEX.

A£Bdavits, 24, 83, 132-4.
Aaaasizy 10-13, 374.
•^Sx)tt, 371, 372.
Angels, 321, 322.
Apparitions, 57, 63-7, 72,74,

78, 107, 144, 20I-6, 209,

233, 340. 341-
Arago, 165, 221.
Aristotle, 340.
Aschauer, 209, aia.
Ashburner, 114, 223, 245.
Atheism, 153, 305.
Atkinson, 176, 177.
Au^tine, 27, 154, 172, 395.
Axioms, 308.
Azais, 367.

Babbage, Professor, 388.

Babinet, 213, 289.

Bacon, 104, 148, 168.

Bain, 199.

Balaam, 9, 393.

Banner of Light, 733, 297.

Baxter, R., 27, 155, 202,

250.
Beattie, 158.
Beaumont, 206.
Beecher, C, 255.
Beecher, E., 332, 354.
Bell, R., 18, 28, 8s, 86, 95,

223.
Berkeley, 305.
Bertrand, Dr., 165, 185, z86,

388.

Bible Spiritualism, 207, 290,

BiSet, 178-185.
Bizouard, 209.
Blackstone, 27, 96, zo8.
Blind Tom, 140.
Boehme, 150.
Boismont, 168, 169.
Bonnamy, 331, 363.
Bonnet, 366, 368.
Boston Courier, 9, la
Boucicault, 17.
Bowles, B. F., 174.
Bray, C., 220.
Brewster, 9, 18, 19, 109, 289.
Brittan, 171, 223.
Brodie, 318.*
Brougham, 18.
Brown, R. H., 187.
Browne, Sir T., 104.
Browning, Mrs., ziz.
Brownson, 2x3.
Brutes, Souls of, 263, 265.
Bachree, L., 328.

BUchner, 154, iS9» i9S» tgS,

367, 369-
Burtis, 318.
Burton, R. F., 46.
Bush, Geo., 113, 150, 345.
Bushnell 169, 170.
Cabalists, 347, 348.
Cahagnet, 353.
CaleCio6.
Calmet, 106.
Calvin, 334.

Qambrid^e Committee, 10,

13, 38, 289.
Campbell, Dr. Geo., 53, 54.
Cardan, 340, 366.
Cariyle, T., 216.
Carpenter, Dr. W. B., 154,

160.

Catholic Church, 318, 319,
Catholic miracles, 396.
Chambers, R., 18, iii.
Chaseray, 360, 363, 364, 365.
Chemical &cts, 6, 247, 374.
ChUds, H. T., 303.
Chinese, Planchette among,
397-.

Christianity, 253, 316, 318,

Cicero, 172, 255, 256, 340.

Clairvoyance, Proofs o^ 10,
28, 75, ICS, H3, 146, 151,
i54» iS9» 165, 166, 167, 168,
169, 171, 378. ^

Clairvoyance a proof of im-
mortjuity, 187-195.

Clairvoyance called impos-
sible, 166.

Clairvoyant, The, 183.

Clark, Bishop, m.

Cleveland Convention, 38,
285, 286, 318.

Clemens, Alex., 172.

Cloquet, M., 163.

Cock Lane ghost, 205.

Clowes, Rev. Mr., 323.

Colbv, W. A., 123.

Colchester, 123, 206.

Coleman, Benj., 18, 19, 57,
60, 77, 124, 148, 223, 235,
236, 237, 238, 273, 287,

^294.

Coleridge, 86, 250, 377.
Collier, Dr., 28.
Columbus, no, 397.
Conflict of Ages, 332, 354.
Communications, 25, 238,
294, 301.

Consdousness, 154, 298,
219, 224, 238, 263, 376.
Cooper, R., 48.
Copernicus, 28, ^4.
Comhill Magazine, 85.
Correlation of forces, 26a
Cottin, Angelique, 221.
Cox, William, 18, 19.
Cudworth, 153, 322, 351,
Cui bono? 17, 94, 278.
Culver, Mrs., 34.
Cushman, Mrs., 124.
Cuvier^ 222.

Danskm, W. A., 132, 233.

Dark Circles, 38, 282, 286.

Darkness a condition, 125.

Darwinian theory, 155, 266,
26S, 269.

Daumer, Professor, 240.

Davenport Brothers, 11-17,

^37-45,231. ^ . ^

Davenport Brothers m £u-
rope, 46, 47, 48.

Davenport Brothers, exhi-
bitions of, 45, 235.

Davenport Brothers, re-
ports on, 17, 38-45, 46.

Davis, A. J., 102, 125, 316,
353-

Davy, Sir H., 354.
Death, 243, 244, 279, 280,

300, 316, 317, 336, 361.
Delachambre, 324.
Deleuze, 153, 178-185.
Delitzch, 345.
Democritus, 233.
Demonolatty, 206.
Denton, Wm., 134, 151,

223, 387.
Descartes, 339, 364.
Deschamps, Emile, 383.
Dewey, Rev. O., 279.
Diabolical agency, 321, 33a.
Divination, 173.
Doherty, H., 156.
Donne, Dr., 202*
Double-goers, 233, 237.
Dreams, 169, 256.
Druids, The, 290, 349.
Dublin Review, 319.
Dupotet, 153, 178, 185, 186,

187, 378.
Dyott, M. B., 286.
Edinburgh Review, 10, 103^

Z08, 1 10, 160.
Edmonds, Judge, 229, 300,
Edwards, Milne, 368.

^02

INDEX.

EpT^ians, The, 346.
Electricity, 6, 28.
Elliotson, 20, 117, 157, 177.
Ellis, Laura V., laq, 130.
Elongation, 100, 226.
Encyc. Metrop., 31, 107.
Enneinoser, no, 352.
Knfantin, 328.
England, Spiritualism in,

281.
Epicurus, 233.
Eschenmayer, 146, 147, 252.
Evil, Existence of, 284, 303,

304, 333. 348.
Evodius, 395.
Failure, Causes of^ 13, 94.
Faraday, 9, 15, 16-19, 25,

296.

Faraday, his theor>', 15, 20,

118, 21H, 222, 260.
Farrar, Daniel, 206, 223.
Fathers, The, 366.
Favre, Jules, in. .
Fay, \V illiam, 46, 235.
Feiton, Professor, 9.
Ferguson, J. B., 235, 236,

250.

Feuerbach, 154, 155.

Field, Kate, 398.

Filassier, M., 165.

I'inney, S. J., 304.

Fire ordeal, t)6.

Flint, Dr., his theory, 9.

Floiirens, M., 365, 368.

Foetus, Mind in the, 156.

Foster, C. II., 111-120, 171.

Fourier, 328.

Fox family, 29.

Fox, Kate, 11, 30, 34, 55,
109, 16:.

Fox, Kate, Dr. Gray's re-
marks on, 160.

Franck, Professor G., 196.

Franklin, Benj., 54.

Franklin, Benj., supposed
apparition of, 62, 66, 70,

Fuller, M.irgaret, 141.

Calileo, 28. 327.

Gardner, Dr. H., 9-1 1.

Gnribakli, 111.

Garve, C, 370.

Gasparin, 164, 221.

Georget, i(>o, 164.

Gibbon, 2>>S.

CJI.uivil, 27, 30, 31, 206, 341.
Giul, Conceptions of, 152,

271 311, 322, 331, 350.
Goethe, no, 151, 154, 385.
Giirres, no, 146, 209, 212,

252.

Gi'uld, Professor B. A., xo.
Gousset, Cardinal, 320.

Gratiolet, 368.
Graves. E. de las, ago.
Gray, Dr. J. F., 38, 39, 55,

60, 78, 134, 223.
Greeley, H., 50.
Gregory, Dr. Wm., 13.
Grote, 347.
Grove, 379.
Guay, \vm., 138.
Ouldenstubbe, 206.
GuUy^ Dr., 28, 95.
Gunnmg, Professor, 14, 124,

130, 223-
Guppy, Dr., 231, 247.
Uahn, 207.
Hall, Mrs. S. C, lox.
Halley's comet, 37.
Hamilton, Sir W., 305, 306,

378.

Hamilton, the juggler, 47.

Hands, Formation of, 36,
45. 5<h 89, "7. "7. 134,
139,206,207,231,286,395.

Hare, Professor, 20, 228,
250.

Hardin^e, E., 102.
Harris, T. L., 324.
Haunted houses, 4.
Heaven, 301, 358.
Hecker, 319.

Hegel, 148, 305, 354, 357.
Hell, 301, 315, 357.
Heraciitus, 158.
Herder, 34^344- ,
Hermann, the juggler, 123.
Herodotus, 346.
Herschel, Sir J., 94.
Hindoos, The, 349, 350.
Home, Daniel, his affidavit,

life, &c., 80, 100.

letter to TjTidall, 16.

testimonials, 23, 24, 84,
87, 98, lOO.

stances, 18, 21, 87, 98-
100.

ordeal by fire, 97.

elongation, 100.

levitation, 145.

referred to, 379.
Honebtas, 241-5, 296.
Hooker, Dr., 155.
Hnrnung, D., 240.
Horsford, Professor, 10.
Hoiidin on Davenports, 46,
Howitt, Wm., 17S, 201, 205,

Hrjlf lJ?.°GeraId,6i.
Human Nature, 241, 296.
Hume, 258.
Huxley, 266, 268, 270.
Hydesville doings, 29, 57,
178.

Hypothena, Spirilui], tsB^
xxo, X76, »23j aas, aA
as8^ 367,277, 996.

Identity, 6a, 324.

Inglefield, Captaan, xS.

Immortality* 19X.

Insanity, xo8.

Intuition, 192, 308.

Irenaus, 345, 35X, 367.

Iron-nng feats, X30, 132)

Jacison, J. W., 223-233,
^ 238, 352,

Jacob the Zonave, 393.
Jamblichus, 100, 255, 34a
'aniieson, W. F., 284.

encken, H. J., xoa

esus, 148, 239, as3, 331.

ews,The, 172.

oan of Arc, 26^ 79.

obard, M., 280.

ohnson. Dr., X54, aqs, 3x9.

oubert, xS3, X7X.

ulian, the apostate, 298^

ustin, Mart^, 173.

Lane, Captam, 29.
Kant, ao4, 252, 34a.
Kardec, 313, 3^33^* 3Sh

338. 339
Kepler, 357.

Kemer, Justmus, 32, ixo^
ni, i4i-iSo> 237. *S2»
295.

King, T. S., 214-216.
Knee-joint Uieory, 9.
Koon's rooms, 35-37.
I.acordaire, 32a
Latour, 327.

La\'ater, no, xsx, 381, 385.

Lecky, 104, 400.

Lee, Dr. Edwin, 167.

Lee and Flint, Drs., 9.

Leibnitz, 157, 173, 244.

Leigh ton. A., 223, 224, 226.

Leroux, 328, 360, 363.

Lessin^, 146, 325, 342, 345.

Levitation, 92, 100, xoi, X05,
106, 107, X09, X28, 146^
184, 226.

Lewes, G. H., 25, 266.

Lewis, Dr. Winslow, 84.

Lichtenber]^, 342.

Lights, Spirit, 56.

L , his ex-
periences through Kate
Fox, 56-79, 223, 231.

Livy, 162.

Locke, 264, 279.

London Sat Kev., X48.

Ix)omis*s, Dr., Report, 39.

Lord, Jennie, 125, X28, 1219,
146.

INDEX.

Ixireland, J. S., 286.
Luther, 27.
Lyndhurst, Lord, zix.
Lyon, Mrs., 81, 82.
Lyttleton, Lord, 201.
Lytton, 294, 373. .
Magnetism, Anunal, 28,

151. iS3i »54. 162, 171.
Magnetiiun, Reports on,

162, 222.
MaKuetist^, French, X77.
Mahan, 220, 251.
Mahomet, 397.
Manicheaiis, 349.
Manifestations. See Table

of Contents, 9-12.
Mansel, 305, 306, 309, 334.
Mansfield, J. V., 11, 379.
Mapes, Professor, 45.
Marsliall, Mrs., 240.
Marsiliiis Ficinus, 340.
Af artineau, J., 199.
Alarv Jane theory, 247.
blather, 27, 106.
Matter and Spirit, 295.
Materialism, 153, 157-160,

166, 1.S9, 19s, 318.
Materialism answered, 189,

19s. 267,
Maudsley, Dr., loS, 160,

196.
Maury, 368.
Mazzmi, iii.
Mediums, 12^ 82, 125.
mutiplication of, 35, 106,

241, 291.
unreliable, 2S5, 324.
why necessary, 13, 241-

• '*^\ .
Mcdiuniship, xox, 241.

Mclaiicthon, 31.

Memory, 360, 377.

Mcsmer, Anton, 161.

Metamorphosis, 173.

Metaphysics, 309, 345.

Meiern,isyclu»sis, 173, 256,

303, JJO. 3J7.

Metliod.sm, 281.

Meteoric Htcmes, 15.

Mevcr, Von F., 110, 146.

Mill, J. S ,

Mir.ic.t s. j'^u. 322.

Mojo.K 1; .uu ;i. 317.

Molc-tiholt, 154, 157, 195.

3'»7-

Moiilio<ii:r. 374.

Mou-. \h: try, 103, 207, 314,

.n>-

Morgan, i'roi'cssor A. de,

15, 21. iiz, 323.
Morin. M., 17H.
Morion, Dr. W. T. G., 109.

Moser's experiments, 165.
Molt, Dr. v., 163.
Mountford, Wm., 34, 125,

223, 396.
Muchehiey disturbances,

120.

Muller, J., 342.
Mumlcr, 137.

Musical Nfanifestations, 36,

91. 95-
Nation, N.Y., 288, 289.
Neo-Platonists, 347.
Nervous lluid, 223.
Newman, F. W., 388.
Newton, 19, 54, 102, 157,

295.

Newton, Dr., 393.
Newton, A. IS., 292.
Nichols, Dr. J. R., 3-7.
Nichols, Dr. T. L„ 12, 13,
37-

Norton, D., 303.
Novalis, 35, no.
Oberiiii, 110, 259.
Objections, Frivolous, 54,
MS.

Odx Force, 190, 241, 247.
Oersted, 375.

Oracles, Ancient, 172, 297.
Origen, 27, 154, 172, 340,

34 »» 344. 34^*. 349. 354.

355-

Owen, R. D., 36, 201, 223,
233.

Page, David, 266.
Pall Mall Gazette, 17, 298.
Palmer, John, 204.
Pantheism, 305.
Pascal, 154. "167, 334.
Pensprit, 329.
Perrone, Father, 319.
I'crsonal exijcriences, 37,

112, 113, 125, 125, 129,

15?, 2or., 274.
Piielps, Rev. l>r., 5, 49, 50.
Pheiioineuaof 1847, 29, 135,

136, 151.
Phenomena of witchcraft,
105, 135, 143
clas>ihed, 55, 225, 251,
321.

Physical, 25, 35, 94,

285. 3«v-
Real, 4, s.

admitted by the Cath-
o ic C'iiiirch, ji;,. 320.
irre, rcsr,ible, 7.
Pho-.phoru-', f)ij.
Phys:olo;;y._i54. 156, 161.
l*lerce, Profcsiior, 10, 13.
Planchette, described, i, 4,
5-

Planchette, its caprices, 3,

in China, 397.

sale of, 397.
Plato, 27, 162, 318, 346, 395.
Plot in us, 340.
Plutarch, 27, 297.
Pneumatology, 151.
Pon)hyiy, 347-
Potter, W. B., 291.
Prediction, Remarkably
167.

Pre-existence, 256, 300, 326-
354- .

Prevision, 167, 169.
l*roclus, 340.

Professors nonplussed, 13.
Protestantism, 255.
Psychology, 262.
Psychometry, 146, 354, 374-
3'>o-

Puysegur, 153, 165, 171, 186.
Pythagoras 27, 340, 343, 346.
Python:sm, 289, 322.
Rappings, 2, 29, 32, 105,

142, 206, 240, 248, 253.
Ray, Dr. J., 8.
Read, C. H., 132.
Reade, C^has., i8.
Redman, the medium, 1:,

35-

Rehn, 260.

Reichenbach, 1x8, 220, 240^
241, 247, 251, 387.

Reichenbach on Spiritual-
ism, 241.

Reiinar, 3A5.

Re-incaniation, 33X.

Religion, 312, 314.

Renan. E., 397.

Resurrection of the body,
315-

Reubelt, 195.

Reyn.iud, 328, 3SS-363.

Rhys, M., Letter ot; 47.

Rich, Elihu, 107.

Richardson. 134.

Rich.irdson, Rev. J., 204.

Richter, 318.

Roberlstm, F. \V,, 279.

Rochester, Henry, 168.

Rochotcr knockings, 29,

«3.V , .

RiH:lie:aer resolutions, 300
Ro^or->. K. C, 2IJJ.
Riipe tying, 3^rAS> i33-
Rosi.m, M., 164.
Rothery, W. H., 349-
Round T.ib'c, 397.
Ri:!e. .Margaret. 106.
Sadduceeism, 171, 206^ 321.
St. M.iitiu. 178, 338, 34Z.
St. Pa :.. 123, 151, 162,344,

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V.fu Hclinuiit* 543.

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Full text of "Planchette : or, The despair of science : being a full account of modern spiritualism, its phenomena, and the various theories regarding it: with a survey of French spiritism"

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